Duane Kuiper joins Cole and Alex on Giants Talk to discuss Alyssa Nakken making MLB history when she came in to coach first base for the Giants in the third inning after Antoan Richardson was ejected.
SAN FRANCISCO -- On Opening Day last year, the Giants bullpen gave up six runs in the eighth inning of a loss to the Seattle Mariners. It was a disaster, but six months later, when Dominic Leone closed out win No. 107, the bullpen's ERA dropped to an MLB-best 2.99.
It takes months to get a true sense of all the strengths and weaknesses of a baseball team, but there's still a lot you can learn early on. That Opening Day loss gave a glimpse of what was to come for Kevin Gausman and also Buster Posey, who immediately showed signs that he was all the way back from hip surgery and a summer off.
This year's version of the Giants got off to a much better start, with a walk-off kicking off one of the wildest homestands in years. There was history made by the Rogers twins and by Alyssa Nakken. There was a rare joint press conference for coaches from opposing teams. One top prospect made his long-awaited debut and another hit his first bomb. There was a man standing on a boat with a "C" on his chest. There was even an "unwritten rules" controversy.
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SIGN UP HERE It was an action-packed week, and if you were paying close attention, you learned some things about the 2022 Giants. Here are three things that stood out:
They Are Who We Thought They Were
On Opening Day, Logan Webb allowed one run over six innings -- and you can make a pretty strong argument that it was only the third-best performance the first time through the rotation. Webb watched Carlos Rodon strike out 12 in five innings and Alex Cobb whiff 10 in his five, and then came back Wednesday with an eight-inning gem of his own.
Webb's second start lowered the rotation's ERA to 2.53 through six games. The starters have a league-high 43 strikeouts in 32 innings.
"We've got a special group, and we know that," Webb said. "That's the first thing Cobb said to me when I walked in, he was like, 'We're going to pitch like this all year.' And we all believe that. I'll just leave it at that."
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That was the best sign of the first week for the Giants, who are built around that rotation. Given what Rodon and Cobb showed in their debuts, and how Webb seems to get better every time out, there's no reason to think that'll change. If those three -- plus Anthony DeSclafani and Alex Wood -- stay healthy, it could be the best starting five in the league.
Still Grinding
The social media grumbling about the lineup started over the weekend and hit a crescendo when the Giants lost 4-2 on Monday night. The next night, they scored 13 runs.
Look, this probably isn't the equivalent of the 2021 lineup that led the NL in homers, but it's still way too early to panic. The Giants are without LaMonte Wade Jr., Evan Longoria and Tommy La Stella, but they felt they were taking their usual wear-you-down approach over six games. The biggest issue so far is the .596 OPS with runners in scoring position, far below last year's .792.
"I just don't think we got the big hit. It's something I think we've been struggling a little bit with early on this season, and it's something that came naturally and pretty easy to us last year," manager Gabe Kapler said after an 0-for-11 with runners in scoring position Monday.
The Giants were still having their usual patient at-bats (Sean Manaea on Wednesday became the first starter to get past the fifth against the lineup) but the backbreaking hits have mostly been missing. That's something to watch on this upcoming 11-game trip.
Something New In The Outfield
Kapler keeps an even tone most times, but he lit up when he had a chance to talk about Austin Slater's attempt on a line drive Sunday. Slater came in hard on Jorge Soler's 108-mph rocket to right, and while he couldn't quite snag it with his dive, he did scoop the ball on a short hop.
Outfielders are usually taught to lay up on that play, but Kapler said the staff is asking outfielders to attack those balls and not worry about the consequences. He said he was "really excited" to watch Slater's attempt.
"The aggressive mindset for an outfielder gives you the (best) chance to throw runners out, it gives you the best chance to keep a trail runner where they are, and over the course of time you're going to catch more balls as well because you never stop coming through a ball," Kapler said. "We've all seen that moment where an outfielder lays up, he pulls up, and you're like, 'Ohhh, if he had just kept coming he catches that ball.' One or two of those happens in each game, either on a low line drive or the weak ball that goes over the infielder's head and drops right in front of an outfielder.
"Our concept is that over the course of time, if we have an aggressive mind coming through the baseball, there will be less of those moments where we pull up and a ball drops in front of us."
Kapler said this is playing the long game. It seemed like Steven Duggar threw to the wrong bag on Opening Day, but Kapler said his mindset -- to come up attacking -- was right, Duggar just overthrew his cutoff man. On Monday, Joc Pederson came in hard on a single to left in the ninth. He didn't make the catch, but like Slater, he was able to keep the ball in front of him.
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Kapler called it the toughest play for an outfielder, noting that you have to "trick your mind into coming through the ball." You also have to show some guts. If that ball gets past Slater, it's a triple. Isn't the new mindset a risk, then?
"Yes and no. Sometimes what happens is you have good enough eye-hand coordination where what happened (Sunday) happens, where you pick it. Other times the ball goes off your body and you keep it in front of you," Kapler said. "And every once in a while, a ball is going to go to the wall and another team is going to turn up with a triple and the run is going to score. But again, the calculus is over the course of time you record more outs and you keep runners where they are. The aggressive style of play wins the long game."
