PHOENIX, Ariz.–Every scout in the Giants’ organization traveled to the desert this week for San Francisco’s final road series of the season.
The scouts weren’t there to eye talent, but instead to begin discussing the franchise’s strategy for the 2018 Major League Baseball Draft. San Francisco is guaranteed a top-four pick for the first time since 1997, and for a team that lost its 96th game of the season on Tuesday evening, planning for the future should have started long ago.
If the scouts did happen to lay their eyes on another disastrous display of Giants’ baseball, perhaps a few of them took note of Diamondbacks’ slugger and free agent-to-be J.D. Martinez, who launched a second inning grand slam to put the game out of reach and give Arizona an 8-0 lead en route to an 11-4 victory.
Martinez’s home run, his 28th in 58 games since being traded from Detroit, was another soaring, opposite field crater-maker that served as a not-so-subtle reminder of how the Diamondbacks have evolved, and how the Giants have simply devolved.
While Arizona staged a historic turnaround after finishing 20 games below .500 a season ago, the difference in this year’s Giants team from the one that won a wildcard spot in 2016 is even more dramatic. After ending the year with 87 victories in 2016, the Giants are 34 games under .500 with four contests left to play. On September 26, a 100-loss season is still on the table.
One of the obvious sources of San Francisco’s struggles this season took the mound for the final time on Tuesday evening, and Matt Moore’s nightmare year came to a jarring finish against the Diamondbacks. The gopher ball Moore served up to Martinez could be the final pitch of Moore’s season, and an all-too-fitting way for the southpaw’s first full campaign with San Francisco to conclude.
“That’s not a good start,” Giants’ manager Bruce Bochy said. “He was off tonight, there was no getting around it. Tough night for Matty, he’s been throwing well. He’s been on a pretty good role and you look at the last seven or eight starts, it’s been really so much better and tonight was just off.”
After lasting just 1.1 innings on Tuesday, his shortest stint of a season he’d like to wipe off the books altogether, Moore’s earned run average rose to 5.52, its highest peak in more than a month. When the season ends on Sunday, Moore’s 5.52 ERA will become the worst by a qualifying pitcher in the National League since Edinson Volquez finished his 2013 season with a 5.73 mark. In the past decade, only one other National League pitcher has posted an ERA higher than Moore’s over the course of a full season, and that was Brandon Backe, who somehow managed to remain in the Houston Astros’ rotation for 31 starts despite finishing the 2008 season with a jaw-dropping 6.05 mark.
Following Tuesday’s blowup, Moore is now destined to finish the season with the worst ERA in the National League by more than half a point, with another Giants’ southpaw, Ty Blach, in line to end the year with the next highest mark. Blach can still alter his numbers with a relief appearance over San Francisco’s next four games, but his 4.84 ERA is nearly two tenths of a point higher than the third worst pitcher in the National League, John Lackey, who carries a 4.67 mark into the final days of the regular season.
It’s almost impossible to put Moore’s season-long slump into perspective, considering he’s just the fifth Giants’ pitcher since 2000 to post an ERA above 5.00. Remarkably, though, Moore isn’t joining a list of no-names. Instead, he’s achieved rather rare company with successful pitchers who just suffered through horrendous seasons. The four other Giants with an ERA above 5.00 over a full season? Russ Ortiz who posted a 5.01 ERA in 2000, Livan Hernandez, who registered a 5.24 ERA in 2001, Barry Zito, who checked in with a 5.15 ERA in 2008 and Tim Lincecum, who finished with a 5.18 ERA in 2012.
Is there hope for Moore? The Giants have already announced they plan to exercise his $9 million option for the 2018 season, and the franchise’s four pitchers who each turned in a season ERA above 5.00 combined for 10 All-Star appearances and three Cy Young Awards during their careers.
There’s certainly hope for him to finish the season on a better note, as Bochy said after Tuesday’s outing that he hopes to give Moore one final appearance this season.
“I’ll find a way I think maybe to get him out there for some work,” Bochy said. “I don’t want him to go out like this either because he has been throwing the ball well. I’ll talk to him but this ballpark is not very forgiving.”
San Francisco’s front office has yet to give up hope on Moore, in large part because he stepped up his game during the second half of the season. But Tuesday’s outing was a reminder of the dangerous waters the Giants are treading in by relying on Moore to hold down a rotation spot next season.
Of course, it would be irresponsible to pin the Giants’ 2017 issues on Moore alone. His other left-handed mates in San Francisco’s rotation haven’t exactly fared well either. Moore, Blach and ace Madison Bumgarner combined to make 72 starts this year, and the Giants won just 23 of those. That’s a .319 winning percentage, which over the course of a 162-game season, translates to just 51 wins and 111 losses.
The left-handed pitchers weren’t helped much by the Giants’ dismal offense, which has hit a league-worst 127 home runs, or the Giants’ dreaded outfield defense, which ranks 29th in Outs Above Average, a cumulative that accounts for the number of plays made and the difficulty of those plays.
But in the midst of San Francisco’s loss on Tuesday, the Giants’ scouts were at least treated to a power display by Martinez, who will surely factor into front office discussions when he’s available this offseason. Even though Martinez ranks 189th out of 205 qualifying outfielders in Outs Above Average defensively, his 44 home runs are the third-most in the Major Leagues, and his right-handed bat is one of a few that could realistically play at AT&T Park.
If the Giants learned anything from Moore’s last start of the season, it’s that the club must consider adding a power hitter like Martinez, or at the very least, a rangy defender with some pop who can help give their left-handers more of a chance, provided those lefties can help themselves.
If it’s up to Moore, he’ll have one last chance to do so this weekend.
“Yeah you know, I haven’t had a chance to talk to him yet but that was kind of taking the words out of my mouth because this is baseball,” Moore said. “It can teach you some tough lessons and sometimes if you’re hard-headed, it’s just, the last start of the season, this is nothing that you know, I want to sit on heading into the break. I hope that is the case. Even if it’s not getting a start, obviously we have plenty of guys to go around.”