Category: Sports News

What to make of rough series for Giants rotation vs. Phillies originally appeared on NBC Sports Bay Area

PHILADELPHIA — The Giants came away from Citizens Bank Park with a split, a positive for any team given that the Philadelphia Phillies have had the best home record in baseball over the past year and haven’t lost any of their last 10 series in their own park. But it would be hard to blame Giants manager Bob Melvin if he never wanted to think about those 36 innings again.

Melvin’s starting pitchers gave up 10 runs in the first inning across four games, and twice he had to call down to the bullpen to get a reliever loose before the third out. The only reason he didn’t do it a third time was because the bullpen was so taxed coming into Thursday’s series finale that Melvin had no choice but to let Jordan Hicks try and get out of his own jam, even if that ended up leading to an uncomfortable pitch count. 

Hicks found a way to recover, and on a day when he watched the first five Phillies reach base, he ended up going seven and saving the bullpen in the middle of a stretch of 17 games in 17 days. After the loss, several pitchers stopped by his locker to tell him how meaningful that was.

But it was also a third close call in four games, and on the last homestand, Melvin had to pull Justin Verlander in the third inning of the home opener and nearly did it again in his next start. There’s been an early theme for a rotation that isn’t living up to preseason expectations.

Through 19 games, Giants starters have a 4.80 ERA, which ranks 27th in the majors, and they’re 15th in innings pitched. They’re 29th in walk rate, and eight of those free passes came in the first innings against the Phillies. 

There have been some early red flags, but for now, Melvin is focused on silver linings.

“On this trip, it’s been difficult to pitch. The conditions have been tough,” he said Thursday. “I’m not saying it’s that much easier for hitters, but we’re winning games without maybe some of the outings that we would expect out of our starters and I look at that as a good sign. We can win in different ways.”

The odd thing about the rotation is that all five starters can find their own silver linings through three weeks. 

Verlander has a 6.75 ERA, but his fastball has averaged 94.5 mph, a full tick up from last season, and he has said this is the best he has felt physically in three years. Ray gave up five runs and walked nine on the East Coast swing, throwing just eight innings across two starts, but he had a 2.93 ERA through his first three starts, all wins, and has 21 strikeouts in 19 1/3 innings.

Hicks was absolutely dominant in his season debut in Houston, and after the five-run first on Thursday he threw six shutout innings against one of the league’s best lineups, averaging 99 mph with his fastball and throwing one sinker 101.7 mph, the fastest pitch by a Giants starter in the pitch tracking era. Landen Roupp has a 4.80 ERA but also a 2.60 FIP and 12 strikeouts per nine innings.

Overall, Giants starters are 13th in FIP and they’re 29th in BABIP, indicating some bad luck early on. But that didn’t make the Phillies series any easier to take for a team that has yet to need a roster move.  

Roupp was the first to take the ball in Philadelphia and Melvin immediately got the bullpen going. Two nights later it was Robbie Ray, and then Hicks, and combined, Giants starters allowed 18 baserunners in those four first innings. What happened?

“I think they just have a good gameplan coming out in the first inning and it’s more about me just finding a way to get through it when the bad stuff starts happening and they start getting on base,” Hicks said of the Phillies. “It’s, ‘How can I limit the runs and limit the damage for us to stay in that ballgame?’ Hats off, they gameplanned well for that first inning and I felt good after that.”

Hicks was a reliever until coming to San Francisco last year and wore down last summer after his first few months of starting. But he bulked up in the offseason and the Giants made it clear from the start of the winter that their plan was to again lets Hicks start. He has a 6.04 ERA, but also continually shows flashes of his tantalizing potential as a starter. 

That extra weight has helped him maintain his velocity, and on Thursday, he became just the third Giants pitcher in the pitch-tracking era to hit triple-digits at least 16 times in one outing. The other two were relievers Brian Wilson and Erik Cordier.

At the end of a rough series for the rotation, Hicks chose to view it as a learning experience. He said he pitched “angry” after the first inning fireworks. 

“I saw a different side of myself today,” he said. “And we’ll build on that.”

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Ask anyone on the Mets about Mark Vientos and his sluggish performance to start the 2025 season, and they'll tell you it's only a matter of time until what we saw last year shows up again.

“His job is to try to go out there and control the strike zone and hit the ball hard," Mets manager Carlos Mendoza said before Thursday's game against the Cardinals. "And he’s done that, he’s just not getting the results.”

"He’s been having good at-bats the entire year, it just hasn’t gone his way," Francisco Lindor said Thursday. "If he stays through the process, continues to have good at-bats, he’s going to have a successful year. He’s a really good hitter. He’s taking the right pitches, He’s swinging at the right pitches. It’s just a matter of time for him."

That time may be now, after Vientos ended a home run drought that lasted 77 consecutive at-bats in the Mets' 4-1 win over the Cardinals on Thursday.

In the second inning, Vientos launched a 90.4 mph fastball from Andre Pallante the opposite way over the right field wall. The ball was 100.1 mph off the bat but only went 338 feet -- the third-shortest traditional home run at CitiField since 2016 -- but it was enough to not only give the Mets an early 1-0 lead but also allow the 25-year-old to exhale. He pumped his fist rounding first base and let out a yell, and then another as he crossed home plate.

"It’s a good feeling for sure," Vientos said after the game. "Trying to stay positive, have good at-bats. It’s easy to stay positive when your team is winning. That’s always a good thing."

Yes, the Mets (12-7) are winning despite the lack of offensive contributions from Vientos but they were winning a lot last season because of the young infielder. His 27 homers -- in just 111 games -- helped the Mets overcome their slow start and make the playoffs, while his five homers in the postseason were integral to the team's run to the NLCS.

He entered Thursday with just a .210 slugging after slugging .516 a year ago. But as Mendoza said, the hard contact was there -- Vientos' xSLG is .336 -- the third baseman was just a bit unlucky in the early going. That fact has helped Vientos overcome this slow start, and he and the team hope it leads to a breakout.

"I’ve been liking the hard-hit contact that I’ve been having, and walking," Vientos said. "If you stick to the process and just do that over and over again every single day you’re playing, and have good at-bats, they are eventually going to go your way."

"With Vientos, we’ve seen that the whole year, we’ve just haven’t seen the results," Mendoza said of Vientos' home run. "He keeps hitting the ball hard."

The home run was Vientos' lone hit on Thursday, but it should go a long way for the slugger to reach his goals. Lindor, the Mets' de facto captain and mentor to Vientos, is confident the youngster will get to where he needs to get to.

"He has to stay the course," Lindor said. "By the end of the year, hopefully, he’s going to hit 30, 40 home runs. Whatever his goals are, I’m sure he’s going to achieve them."

The New York Rangers completed their season on Thursday night with a 4-0 victory over the Tampa Bay Lightning, but the emotions of the game spoke louder than the score or win. 

It’s been a season from the start that has been riddled with drama, tension, and underwhelming play. It feels that the energy around the Rangers has only gotten worse as time has gone on. 

The mood best to describe this night was sadness. Walking into the legendary Madison Square Garden for the last time this season, there was a sense of gloom. 

It was business as usual, yet there was a strange feeling of emptiness like the Rangers were just playing this game for nothing, which was exactly the case. 

To close out the season, the Rangers actually played really well. The win didn’t matter though, the only thing this victory did was reignite the question: What could have been and where has this team been all season? 

All season long the Rangers showed no sense of heart, no sense of urgency, and no sense of purpose. 

There were fans and surprisingly a lot of them in attendance cheering on the Blueshirts, but it feels like everyone gave up on the Rangers a while ago. 

Throughout the contest, the sadness continued to pour on. The sadness for Sam Rosen who was calling his final game as the Rangers play-by-play announcer, the sadness of a team’s utter collapse from the top of the league to the pits of despair, and the sadness of another season ending with nothing to show for it. 

There was also a feeling of uncertainty. The Rangers have had the same nucleus of players for many years and that might be changing after what can only be described as a dreadful season. 

Throughout the year, the wheels were falling off this team’s core. They were barely holding it together as they continued to lose piece by piece from Jacob Trouba, to Kaapo Kakko, to Ryan Lindgren, to Jimmy Vesey. 

Thursday night felt like this core’s last dance. Sure, there will be quite a few players who return to New York next season. However, major roster turnover and a drastic culture shift are inevitable. 

After the game, Peter Laviolette and a few players rattled on the same old cliches, something that you knew they weren’t actually thinking deep down. 

In a night full of emotions and uncertainty, one thing remained crystal clear: The fans and people of New York deserve better.

Before the Mets' 4-1 win over the St. Louis Cardinals on Thursday night at Citi Field, manager Carlos Mendoza spoke about Brandon Nimmo's tough luck, if Juan Soto is under pressure, and a plan for center field.

Pressure on Juan Soto?

With one ninth of the season gone, Mendoza was asked about Soto not “being off to a start that he may like” and if the pressure – both from the outside work and from himself – meant that the skipper had taken some time to speak to the slugger about his first 18 games in Queens and to see where he is at mentally.

“Not really,” Mendoza said with a chuckle and a bemused smile. 

“It’s funny because here we are talking about not having the start he would like or we would like or people would like,” the manager continued.  “He’s still got like an .830 OPS and he’s still getting on base and giving you great at-bats.”

While the manager slightly inflated the slugger's number, which fell to .773 after Soto went 0-for-3 with a walk in Thursday's win, the point still stood. Especially when you consider the right fielder scorched two grounders – 106.7 mph off the bat up the middle in the first and 97.7 mph in the fifth – but came up empty.

In fact, the two balls in play carried a .530 and .500 expected batting average, per Statcast, but accounted for no hits and three outs via a double play.

“And yes, here we are,” Mendoza said, adding a shrug. “No, I just want him to be himself, go out there, have fun, and play the game.”

When asked about the pressure of the new contract, the new team, and a new borough, Mendoza said Soto was “under a lot of pressure last year when he was playing for the Yankees, going into his free agent year, and he handled it pretty well.”

“I think it’s just, he’s human,” the manager said. “And this is home for him now. He’s Juan Soto, he’s fine.”

Mendoza didn’t mention it, but over his career, games in March/April have been his worst ‘month.” He has a career .258/.395/.468 slash for an .863 OPS in 143 early-season games entering Thursday. 

Those four numbers are his lowest in those categories for any period of the season.

Nimmo’s fortune favors the bold? 

Through 19 games, Nimmo has 14 hits in 72 at-bats (.194) with three doubles, four home runs, and nine RBI with a .656 OPS.

What has the manager made of the 32-year-old’s at-bats to start the year? “They’re on, they’re off, there’s times where he’s hitting the ball hard and he’s not getting results,” Mendoza said before the game, in which Nimmo went 0-for-3. 

“Feel like he’s been a little aggressive at times, swinging at the first pitch,” he continued. “I think his approach, game plan that we’re going out there and we’re gonna be aggressive, he just hasn’t got results.”

Nimmo is swinging at the first pitch more than he ever has in his career at 46.1 percent entering Thursday’s game, up from 32.6 percent last year, which was up from a near career-low 25.5 percent in 2023.

But almost across the board, the Statcast metrics for Nimmo are up from last year: barrel percentage is up 5.2 percent, hard-hit percentage up 6.2 percent, expected batting average up .028 (to .272), and expected slugging up .121 (to .529, a small sample size career high).

In Thursday’s game, Nimmo swung at just one first-pitch and hit the ball hard (over 95 mph) twice, but had nothing to show for it.

“But we know, the professional hitter that he is, he’s gonna control the strike zone better than anybody else,” Mendoza said. “He’s got power, he’s got the ability to use the whole field, and he’s an important player for us. 

“So, early on, maybe a little bit of not getting results, hitting the ball hard, being a little too aggressive. But overall, I like where he’s at.”

With Nimmo batting in the heart of the order this year as opposed to in the two hole, where he spent a significant portion of last year, Mendoza was asked if that means the veteran is having trouble striking the right balance in his approach from working counts and taking walks to being more on the front foot and driving in runs.

“I think the game will dictate at times when he’s going to be aggressive, when he needs to work an at-bat,” the manager said. “And also, when there’s traffic out there and they’re giving you a pitch to hit, we want to be aggressive. 

“And more times than not, the results are gonna be there. Yes, right now, we’re not getting those results and we’re not gonna overreact to it. As long as the process, our approach, the reasons behind it are good reasons.”

Mendoza still sees Nimmo as “one of the better decision makers” at the plate. “He’s gonna be fine.”

Center of mind

With Jose Siri on the IL for some time with the broken left tibia, Mendoza isn’t short of options to platoon in center field with Tyrone Taylor. And the manager said Thursday that he is comfortable with Nimmo playing there “anytime we need him to.”

“Perfectly fine with [Nimmo] not only playing [center] late in games but even starts and things like that,” he said, adding that they will check on his fitness each day to maintain his freshness as the club views the long-time Met as an “everyday player.”

“Also comfortable playing the other guys,” Mendoza said. “I think it’s gonna be match-up based, if I feel like I need to get another lefty in the lineup and we put [Jesse] Winker in left and we put Brandon in center, we’ll be fine.”

Could that mean LuisangelAcuña ends up in center? “We’ll see,” the skipper said, adding that José Azócar, added to the roster on Thursday, can play there, too. “But we are preparing Acuña for a potential start if we need him to. He’s playing well, so he’s earning opportunities here.”

Nimmo was asked about the potential shift on Wednesday and said he is open to playing “wherever they want me to.”

“It doesn’t take any skin off my nose. I don’t have the pride like that. I just want to help the team win,” he said.

Another option down the road is Jeff McNeil, who played in center field Thursday in a rehab start at Port St. Lucie. (McNeil will return to playing at second base over the weekend.)