San Francisco Giants’ Patchwork Pitching Staff Shuts Out the Dodgers

Injuries have taken their toll on the San Francisco Giants pitching staff before the season even started, but the patchwork staff threw a combined shutout.

Ty Blach entered camp just looking to crack the San Francisco Giants’ rotation. He came in as the favorite to be the fifth starter, which might not even have been a necessity through the first few weeks of the season. When the injury swooped in and took Madison Bumgarner and Jeff Samardzija with it, Blach was thrust into a role that no one could have seen coming.

He was called on to be the Opening Day starter, the man to take the mound opposite Los Angeles Dodgers’ superstar ace Clayton Kershaw. Blach was undeterred by the large task. As Kershaw put up zeroes in the first, second, third, and fourth innings, Blach was there to match him.

Blach did what got him to this point. He mixed and matched, changing eye levels, changing sides of the plate, and changing speeds. He kept the Dodgers off-balance, limiting the hard contact allowed and letting the infielders behind him do the heavy lifting.

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Joe Panik took care of the offensive side, hitting a solo home run off Kershaw that barely snuck inside the foul pole in the top of the fifth. He became the first left-handed hitting Giant to ever take the Dodgers’ stud deep, and gave the pitching staff the lead they would need to protect.

Blach continued on in the fifth, working through some trouble brought on by a walk and a single, to finish his day with five shutout innings. He allowed just three singles along the way (two collected by Kershaw) and three walks while striking out three. He recorded 10 of his 15 outs via groundballs, including a pair of inning-ending double plays.

With Blach lifted for a pinch-hitter in the top of the sixth, the burden was placed on a bullpen full of pitchers whose roles are different than anticipated. Josh Osich, who made the Opening Day roster after a dominant performance in Spring Training, was the first man out of the bulpen.

Using the reworked delivery and different pitch selection that guided him through a scoreless spring, Osich kept the Dodgers off the board. He did issue a walk in his inning of work, but was much more in control of his pitches than previous seasons. He used his changeup to strike out Yasiel Puig, and got Cody Bellinger to swing through a cutter away.

Cory Gearrin followed, and worked around a pair of singles by freezing Chris Taylor with a tight slider on a full count.

In the eighth, Tony Watson made his Giants’ debut and put a less-than-stellar Cactus League performance behind him. The newly-signed southpaw didn’t strike out any of the 38 batters he faced in Spring Training, but struck out his first regular season batter, Corey Seager, on four pitches. He followed that with another punchout, this time of Puig, and ended the inning by getting Bellinger to swing through a 91-mph sinker down and away.

In Mark Melancon’s absence, it was Hunter Strickland to pitch the ninth. After a lights out Spring campaign where he debuted a slider learned from Hall-of-Famer John Smoltz, Strickland used that pitch to send Yasmani Grandal back to the dugout for a strikeout. He followed that with a harmless pop-up in foul territory, and ended the day with a groundball to shortstop. He completed his sixth career save, matching his total of one from 2017.

The Giants have already spent more time with a winning record this season than they did all of last season, and they did so without their number-one pitcher and their closer. In the process, they proved that the tools are there in the bullpen to make this group better than their counterparts in 2016 and 2017.

Next: Some Surprises as Roster is Set

Strickland and Osich appeared primed for big steps forward, while Watson is a major acquisition. Gearrin is still an effective arm, and if Sam Dyson can right the wrongs of Spring Training, he’s as nasty as they come. The tools are there, they just need to put it together. On Thursday, they did just that.