For the second straight day, the San Francisco Giants engaged in a Cactus League slugfest. And for the second straight day, the power they provided was surpassed by the power they allowed. This time, it wasn’t quite as close as on Wednesday, as the Giants fell to the Colorado Rockies 11-3.
The good was extremely encouraging, and the bad was extremely concerning. So let’s begin with the bad, and get it out of the way as quickly as we can.
Hayden Birdsong, who opened up the spring for the Giants a week ago and only retired one batter, made his second appearance of the preseason. In the most basic statistical sense, it went better this time around. But in reality? Honestly, it might have been worse.
Birdsong entered in the fifth inning, and the first batter he faced — non-roster invitee designated hitter Chad Stevens — took him deep. In Birdsong’s defense, it was the epitome of a Spring Training, humid desert home run: it left the bat at just 99.1 mph, it traveled a mere 365 feet, and, per Statcast, it had an expected batting average of only .170. Were this a Major League game, it probably would have been an out that we didn’t think too much about … unless the Rockies were hosting the game, that is.
He recovered against the next batter, blowing a 97.1-mph fastball past center fielder Jake McCarthy in a 2-2 count.
Then the hiccups started again. Catcher Brett Sullivan had a hard-hit double, and scored on an even harder-hit single by shortstop Cole Carrigg. Right fielder Jordan Beck singled, and then Birdsong’s defense both helped him out and hurt him. Luis Arráez committed an error on what should have been a fielder’s choice, allowing third baseman Kyle Karros — son of Eric — aboard, but then Patrick Bailey threw out Beck for the second out of the inning. Birdsong, slightly rattled, engaged in an eight-pitch battle with first baseman Charlie Condon, which resulted in a walk, before retiring second baseman Adael Amador to end the inning.
Allowing three runs in one inning is emphatically better than allowing five runs in a third of an inning, but the bad results felt mere emblematic of the performance this time around, with Birdsong throwing just 19 of 32 pitches for strikes, and having a few uncompetitive encounters. Critically, after Tony Vitello expressed optimism about Birdsong’s stuff following Saturday’s rough-up, things were quite different on Thursday. This time, the manager made no attempt to put any window dressing on a bad game.
The spring is still young, but unfortunately, the early returns suggest that Birdsong has not been able to fix what doomed his season a year ago. It appears this may not be the quick fix we were all looking for.
San Francisco’s other young, ultra-electric arm in this game was better than Birdsong, though certainly not great. Blade Tidwell got the start and set down the side in order in the first, albeit narrowly avoiding the only-in-Scottsdale home run that damaged Birdsong’s ERA. The second inning was a different story for Tidwell, who was sitting around 96 and, unlike most of the team’s starters this spring, did not lose velocity in his second frame.
He lost effectiveness, though. Tidwell opened the inning with a six-pitch walk in which all six pitches were outside of the zone. That run immediately scored when Karros scorched a triple at 108.1 mph, making it the fourth hardest-hit ball of the entire game. The next batter, Condon, one-upped Karros with the second-hardest hit ball of the game: a 111.2-mph RBI single.
While that wasn’t ideal, Tidwell’s composure most certainly was. Despite having given up a pair of runs, and despite there being a runner on base with no outs, and despite a flurry of hard contact, Tidwell settled in and set down the next three batters on just six pitches, without throwing a single ball.
I wasn’t at the game, and it wasn’t televised, so I can’t speak to how Tidwell or Birdsong looked. But Tidwell’s composure to bounce back in that inning, juxtaposed against Vitello’s comments about Birdsong’s body language, certainly paint a picture for us.
While those were the most notable pitchers to take the bump for the Giants, there were a trio of other arms who joined Birdsong in giving up long balls. Lefty Reiver Sanmartin pitched the fourth and gave up a solo shot to Condon, which left the bat at 102.8 mph. Non-roster invitee Wilkin Ramos handled the sixth, and it did not go well for him. He ceded a 105-mph, 410-foot dinger to Ryan Ritter on the first of 28 pitches that he needed to get through the inning. He gave up two walks, two singles, a double, and two more runs before mercifully getting through the frame.
Prospect and NRI Trent Harris also allowed a long ball, though his performance was fairly encouraging. The undrafted reliever mostly shelved his signature curveball — something to keep an eye on — and instead leaned heavily on his cutter and slider. In the seventh inning, it worked wonders: he struck out the first two batters he faced, and then induced an inning-ending groundball.
But he stayed on the mound for the eighth inning and, while he struck out the ultra-talented Zac Veen, he also gave up a single and a two-run home run. In Harris’ defense, that dinger — Colorado’s fourth and final one of the day — was also a vintage Cactus League bomb. It was hit at just 95.2 mph, and carried an expected batting average of only .190. In all, even though he allowed as many runs as innings pitched, it was an encouraging outing for Harris, though he was pitching at the point of the game where there aren’t many Major Leaguers to be found.
The Giants couldn’t match that thump, but they did have a pair of powerful swings of the bat, including the most impressive swing of the day. In the bottom of the first inning, Matt Chapman — who is once again having a delightful swing — absolutely caught hold of one and let it ride. On the first pitch he saw from fellow righty Valento Bellozo, Chapman hit the ball 108.4 mph (the third hardest-hit ball of the day), and a staggering 460 feet for an absolute no-doubter. A thing of beauty!
In the fifth, it was the man with a new look: left fielder Heliot Ramos. Sporting bleached hair to match his Puerto Rican teammates as he heads off for the WBC, Ramos looked in midseason form against veteran reliever Viktor Vodnik, a fellow righty. Ramos got ahead in the count 2-0, and then blasted a 99-mph challenge fastball 400 feet into the opposite-field desert air for his first home run of spring.
The Giants would score their third and final run of the game two batters later: after Patrick Bailey singled and was replaced by pinch-runner Grant McCray, Harrison Bader continued his excellent spring with an RBI double.
A few more notes from the game:
- Bailey, after going a perfect 3-for-3 on challenges in his last game, lost a challenge in the first inning of this one. I’m guessing that’s not something we’ll see in the regular season.
- Ramos, as we’ve grown accustomed to, hit the absolute snot out of the ball. His home run was the seventh-hardest hit ball of the game, while his other at-bat was a single on the fifth hardest-hit ball of the day. Chapman, similarly, had the third-hardest hit ball on his homer, and the sixth hardest-hit ball on a groundout.
- NRI Parks Harber has been opening eyes ever since the Giants acquired him in the Camilo Doval trade, and there’s one primary reason: he hits the stitches off the ball. That was on display Thursday, when Harber only had one at-bat, but used it to record the hardest-hit baseball all game, a 111.8-mph single.
- If you were listening to the audio of the game, the highlight came during Harris’ strong seventh inning. The broadcasters were sitting near Harris’ family, and you could hear them screaming and cheering very loudly with every strike thrown and every out recorded. It was a great moment.
- Right-hander Spencer Bivens worked around a pair of singles to record a scoreless third inning.
- Lefty NRI Juan Sánchez made his second appearance of the spring, and it went very well. He handled a scoreless ninth inning and struck out two batters, while giving up a single. He peaked at 95.3 mph in his first spring since 2024, after missing all of last year recovering from Tommy John surgery.
- The Giants host the Dodgers tomorrow at 12:05 p.m PT and hey, what do you know, there will actually be video for that game! It’s Robbie Ray vs. Yoshinobu Yamamoto. Tyler Mahle is expected to make his Giants debut on Saturday.
