Category: Sports News

Giants notes: Bob Melvin patching third base together until Matt Chapman returns originally appeared on NBC Sports Bay Area

PHOENIX — Giants veteran Wilmer Flores smiled on Tuesday afternoon and shrugged. He didn’t have a lot of answers to give, and that was understandable. 

Flores found out early in the day that he would be starting at third base for the first time in 14 months, and he figured he would probably have to borrow a glove from Matt Chapman, who is on the IL. Flores said returning to third might be a little uncomfortable, but added he had to be comfortable with being uncomfortable. The Giants needed him at third, and he was up for it. 

“We probably have a week to try to get by,” manager Bob Melvin said.

The Giants expect Chapman back when they return home next week, although given how fast he’s progressing and how poorly the team is playing, it wouldn’t be a shock if he talked his way into the lineup this weekend.

Melvin said Chapman has been in his ear constantly about speeding up the rehab process, but the Giants want to make sure Chapman doesn’t do anything that leads to concerns in the second half. Already, he is ahead of schedule. 

Melvin said Chapman was “letting it go” in the cage on Tuesday and looked good. He also went through a full workout defensively.

“But we also have to stay on what we feel is the right timetable,” Melvin said. “We take direction from the training staff and try to calm him down along the way, as well.”

Until Chapman returns, it’ll be Flores and Brett Wisely at third base. Melvin resisted starting Flores at first base when LaMonte Wade Jr. struggled because there’s concern about wearing him down physically, but the Diamondbacks didn’t test him Tuesday. Flores didn’t touch the ball until the seventh, when he smoothly fielded a grounder. Only one Diamondbacks hitter even pretended to bunt on Flores, who was playing back all night. 

The Giants have talked about putting Rafael Devers back at his natural position, but he’s dealing with groin and back tightness. He still has not even played first base for his new team.

“He’s not yet physically ready to play first, so third would be the same thing,” Melvin said. “Once he’s able to play in the field, he has told me he’s open for anything.”

Tough Timing

Casey Schmitt went down with an injury during the best stretch of his big league career, and the same thing happened to Christian Koss, who had been starting at third. He had a five-game hitting streak going and was 9-for-19 with three doubles in five starts at third base, but he went on the IL on Tuesday with a left hamstring strain that he suffered in Monday’s loss. 

The Giants did not give much detail about the severity of the hamstring injury, but Melvin said it might be a while. The active roster spot went to Luis Matos, who had a .770 OPS and three homers in 20 games back in Triple-A. Matos doubled to left in his first at-bat back. 

What Went Wrong?

The Diamondbacks scored three unearned runs on Tuesday after a pair of passed balls by Patrick Bailey. One in the third allowed a runner to advance, and he scored on a two-out single. In the fifth, Bailey couldn’t hold onto what would have been an inning-ending strike three; the next batter hit a two-run homer. 

Bailey is on his way to a second consecutive Gold Glove Award, but there have been quite a few dropped balls this season, and it’s not hard for the staff to figure out why it’s happening.

“He’s one of the better framers in the game, but that was three runs there,” Melvin said. “There has to be a period or an area where you can’t go after that — you’ve just got to catch it. At least tonight, the ramifications were big.”

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For the Chicago White Sox, it was not a question of whether Shane Smith was the best pitcher they had to offer against the Dodgers — he was very likely their best.

Among White Sox pitchers with 10 or more starts, the rookie right-hander had the best strikeout-per-nine inning rate (8.2), as well as the lowest earned-run average (3.38) entering the game. Smith had been respectably good on a young White Sox roster that has been anything but.

Yet, Smith couldn’t make up the gulf in quality between the best-in-the-National-League Dodgers (54-32) and the worst-in-the-American-League White Sox (28-57). The Dodgers would make sure of that in quick fashion. A four-run, two-out rally in the first inning separated the teams quickly in a 6-1 victory to begin the six-game homestand.

“I think we’re really pitching well,” Dodgers manager Dave Roberts said. “We’re getting a lot of contributions from guys in the middle to the bottom of the order which is huge. We’re getting timely hits.”

“Obviously, that gauntlet of going through 26 games of some really good opponents record-wise, getting through that, not letting down, staying on the gas — I think that’s good, and finishing strong going into the break.”

Whereas Smith was chased from the game in the fifth inning, Yoshinobu Yamamoto was excellent again. A week after being pulled after five innings in Denver — because of a lengthy rain delay — Roberts called on the sure-to-be All-Star to pitch with an extended leash.

Yamamoto gave up one run, a two-out RBI double to Lenyn Sosa in the fourth inning, but twirled his way through an otherwise overmatched White Sox lineup, retiring the final 10 batters he faced. The right-hander tossed seven innings, gave up one run and three hits, while striking out eight, walking one and bringing his earned-run average down to 2.51.

“Any given night, a big league team can get you,” Roberts said, “and I was just happy that he was still aggressive and using the split, putting hitters away, but he's doing what he needs to do."

Across his last 12 innings, Yamamoto has given up just four hits.

“I think I’m pitching with really good form,” Yamamoto said through his interpreter after the game. “I think it’s becoming very clear what I have to do.”

White Sox first baseman Miguel Vargas — the former Dodgers top prospect who the franchise parted ways with at the 2024 trade deadline in exchange for Michael Kopech and Tommy Edman — represented the heart of the Chicago lineup, batting cleanup with his .229 batting average and 10 home runs entering the game.

Vargas, who failed to bring the power in an 0-for-4 effort, received a 2024 World Series ring from Roberts and general manager Brandon Gomes during pregame batting practice. Yamamoto set him down his first three times at the plate Tuesday.

“Yoshinobu did spectacular work today,” Shohei Ohtani told NHK, a Japanese television station, after the game.

Of more promising White Sox prospects, rookie Chase Meidroth faced a potential NL Cy Young award candidate. In the third inning, Yamamoto struck out Meidroth with a three-pitch combo: 95-mph fastball on the edge of the strike zone, a 92-mph cutter on the outside corner and a splitter down and in, forcing a swing more than a foot above where the pitch landed.

Read more:Clayton Kershaw and 3,000 strikeouts: A partnership built on a consistent three-pitch mix

Andy Pages struck two run-scoring hits — a double and a single — en route to a two-for-four day at the plate. The 24-year-old Cuban slugger sits in sixth in the most recent NL All-Star outfielder voting, and ended Tuesday with a .294 batting average and 57 RBIs, the latter statistic being the best on the Dodgers.

"He's earned it,” Michael Conforto, who struck the two-RBI single that capped off the four-run first, said of Pages’ All-Star candidacy. “What you may or may not see is just how hard he works… really just doesn't seem to take days off.”

Ohtani, who was not a part of the Dodgers' hit parade that led to their first five runs across three innings, joined the run-scoring effort in the fourth with a no-doubt solo home run — 408 feet and 116.3 mph, halfway up the right-field pavilion — off of Smith, his 30th this season. As fireworks unexpectedly shot up from the Dodger Stadium parking lot during the ninth inning — it was a reminder that Wednesday could bring fireworks on the field as Clayton Kershaw takes the mound three strikeouts away from being the 20th MLB player to reach the 3,000-strikeout milestone.

Etc.

Kopech returned to the 15-day injured list — of which he recently returned from on June 7 — with right-knee inflammation. He said before Tuesday’s game that he wasn’t sure what caused the injury, and would characterize the ailment as discomfort rather than pain.

Roberts said there isn’t a timeline for Kopech’s return, but said it was a short-term issue. The 29-year-old, who received a cortisone shot in his knee, had yet to give up a run in eight scoreless appearances out of the bullpen.

Read more:More than the glasses: How a lightbulb moment made Max Muncy a 'complete hitter' again

In pitchers on their way back from injuries, Tyler Glasnow (right shoulder inflammation) will throw his third rehabilitation with triple-A Oklahoma City on Thursday. The expectation is that Glasnow will pitch five innings/75 pitches, Roberts said.

The Dodgers manager added that Blake Snell (left shoulder inflammation) and Blake Treinen (right forearm sprain) will throw to live hitters Wednesday, the next step in their recovery progression.

“Hopefully we're starting to turn the corner a little bit,” Roberts said.

Next Ohtani start

Ohtani will next start on the mound Saturday against the Houston Astros — a 4:05 p.m. start — and southpaw Justin Wrobleski will again piggyback off the two-way star’s opening effort.

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This story originally appeared in Los Angeles Times.