San Francisco Giants: Beede Shaky in Debut, But Offense Helps

Tyler Beede, one of the San Francisco Giants’ top prospects, made his major league debut on Tuesday, and it was a mixed bag before the offense got to work.

While injuries continue to ravage and decimate the San Francisco Giants’ pitching staff, opportunities have opened for some of the prospects to get their first taste of big league action. First up in that category was Tyler Beede, the team’s first-round pick from 2014, who was on the mound to make his big league debut on Tuesday.

The first inning was rough for the 24-year-old. After getting help from second baseman Kelby Tomlinson to record his first out, Beede issued a walk to Ketel Marte. He got ahead of the next hitter, Paul Goldschmidt, but let an 0-2 fastball get too much of the plate and the hitter tagged it for a base hit. Then came the big hit, when A.J. Pollock smoked a full-count fastball that was also a bit too fat into the left field corner for a two-run double.

Control would continue to be Beede’s biggest issue throughout his night. He issued five walks in his four-inning outing, and added in a hit by pitch, throwing 45 strikes and 42 balls among his 87 total pitches. He consistently found himself falling behind hitters, throwing 11 first-pitch strikes to his 20 batters faced and falling behind 2-0 five times. Most disappointing of all, Beede walked his counterpart Patrick Corbin twice, both times after getting ahead in the count.

Beede has the pitch repertoire to be a successful major league pitcher. He threw some beautiful changeups that danced below or outside the zone, and added some great curveballs that finished down and away to hitters. He also hit 94.7 with his fastball, but like many (especially young) pitchers, had an easier time throwing it for strikes when he dialed it back a little on the radar gun. Those pitches didn’t happen consistently enough, though, and he had to work extremely hard just to get through his four innings.

Overall it wasn’t a great debut, but Beede did show plenty of guts while working through a number of sticky situations and sticking with his secondary offerings despite having subpar command. After the first-inning runs, he was able to keep Arizona off the board and allowed just one more hit. There’s plenty to work on, but there’s plenty of good to take away as well.

With Beede out of the game and staring a loss in his debut in the face, he needed his offense to back him up. The offense had mustered just two runs in the previous two games, and couldn’t figure out the Diamondbacks’ starter Corbin over the first five innings. They started to put it together in the sixth inning, and worked a bit of that old-school Giants’ magic.

After three straight singles to start the sixth, Andrew McCutchen broke the shutout with a bases-loaded walk, finally taking ball four on the ninth pitch of the at-bat. Buster Posey tied it up with a long flyball to right field, scoring the second run and moving a runner over to third with one out at the same time. Another sac fly, this one from Hunter Pence, gave the Giants their first lead of the series.