Competition for Giants' fifth rotation spot heating up originally appeared on NBC Sports Bay Area
SCOTTSDALE — The Giants have less than a week remaining in Arizona, and players got a reminder of that when they walked into the clubhouse on Sunday morning. There were large cardboard boxes in the center of the room, and clubhouse staffers slipped quietly from locker to locker as they started the tedious process of packing up an entire team and heading back home to Oracle Park.
Just about everyone remaining in the clubhouse is guaranteed of at least playing in the final exhibition games back in the Bay Area, but the Giants still are trying to decide what the initial 26-man roster will look like. The major call is with the final spot in the rotation, and it’s certainly not an easy one.
The Giants came to camp with three young starters vying for the fifth spot, and all three made their cases over a 72-hour period this weekend.
Landen Roupp struck out 13 in an eye-opening start at the minor league facility on Friday. Hayden Birdsong whiffed eight in five shutout innings against the Athletics on Sunday, lowering his Cactus League ERA to 0.75. On paper, Kyle Harrison easily had the worst results, but his fastball sat 93-94 mph and he hit 95 mph several times, a big step forward for a pitcher who was down in the low nineties after losing about a dozen pounds because of a virus just before the start of camp.
“That’s what you want, kind of force our hand and bring it all the way down to the end,” manager Bob Melvin said of the competition. “It adds some adrenaline to spring training games, too, and certainly for our camp everybody is kind of interested to see what happens here, but all of these guys are really talented and like I’ve said before, these guys are all going to pitch for us.”
There’s no doubt that the Giants will need all three this year, and given the normal rhythms of a 162-game season, there’s a good chance that multiple young starters end up making double-digit starts. All three of them could wind up there.
But at the moment, there’s only one spot up for grabs, and all three want it. Harrison came in as the favorite and is trying to show he will be physically ready by Opening Day. Roupp mostly was a reliever last year but has said all spring that he hopes to start. Birdsong might have the highest upside of any pitcher in the organization, and he’s hopeful his development continues at the big-league level.
“Obviously I want to make the Opening Day roster. It would be ideal, just because it would be cool,” Birdsong said. “But I know at some point I’m probably going to start up there regardless.”
The competition is a friendly one between homegrown pitchers who are 26 years old (Roupp) or 23 (Birdsong and Harrison). Birdsong dominated his five innings, working efficiently and allowing just an infield single and roller through the middle of the infield. Afterward, he went back out to the dugout to watch Harrison, who hit 94 mph with his first pitch, an immediate signal that he was feeling like his old self. Harrison ended the sixth inning by freezing a right-handed batter with a 95 mph inside fastball. When he returned to the dugout, he saw Birdsong.
“It’s really nice to see 95,” he said.
“It looks good,” Birdsong responded.
Harrison was in the low 90s in prior outings, in large part because of the virus that hit him at the worst possible time. Coming off a winter of shoulder rehab, Harrison dropped to 207 pounds at the start of camp and was behind as pitchers started live BP sessions. He said he’s up to 220 now and will try to pack on a bit more, but it might be hard for him to get fully up to speed by the time the Giants have to make a decision.
“We’ll see where we are with him,” Melvin said. “He’s a little behind.”
Harrison was limited to three innings at the end of a week when most Giants starters went five, but he was happy to see his fastball return. Last year, he threw the pitch 58 percent of the time, and in a recent bullpen session he raised his arm slot to try and find more life.
“I’m in a good spot now and I’m putting in the work, so it’s good to see it’s finally paying off a little bit,” he said. “Results wise, today wasn’t the best, but I was throwing strikes, competing, and getting ahead and throwing a lot of first-pitch strikes. A lot of those things, I’m trying to work on. I saw a little bit of it come to fruition today.”
The interesting thing about the competition is that it won’t be as cut and dry as picking a winner and putting the other two in the bullpen or sending them both to Triple-A. If Roupp is not the choice, he seems like a lock for a relief role, which he had on Opening Day last year. If Harrison is not the choice, the Giants — even with only one lefty in their bullpen — might find it makes much more sense to send him to Triple-A to continue getting his pitch count up. If Birdsong is not the choice, the Giants likely will point out that he made just two starts in Triple-A last year and could benefit from more development.
At the moment, though, it’s hard to see that last argument. Birdsong lowered his Cactus League ERA to 0.75 and he has 18 strikeouts in 12 innings. Most importantly, he has zero walks after struggling with command as a rookie.
“It gives me a little confidence boost,” he said. “That was my goal in the offseason, to fill it up more, and I’d say I’ve done that … (I had to) stop thinking about striking people out. Ground balls get outs, too. Pop-ups get outs, everything gets outs.”
Birdsong and Roupp have piled them up as effectively as any Giants pitchers this spring. Harrison, after a late start, will try and catch up as the Giants get ready to head home. It’s a competition that has become the biggest story in an otherwise drama-free camp, and it’s ongoing.
“I don’t think the competition is going to be over until the last day of camp,” Roupp said.
