© Lance Iversen-USA TODAY Sports
SAN FRANCISCO — Giants manager Bruce Bochy will have some difficult decisions to make when Jeff Samardzija and Johnny Cueto return from the disabled list in the near future.
Samardzija (shoulder stiffness) is scheduled to make one more rehab start on Friday, and assuming all goes well, will return to the team thereafter. Cueto (sprained elbow) likely has two more starts before making his big league return.
The biggest reason for the Giants’ current run of success — they won seven of their past eight games, including four straight entering Thursday — is the quality of starting pitching. Vintage Madison Bumgarner has fully returned, throwing 15 consecutive shutout innings in his last two starts combined. The complementary starters, including Derek Holland, Dereck Rodriguez, Andrew Suarez, and Chris Stratton have also stepped up to the occasion.
The Athletic‘s Andrew Baggarly joined Tolbert & Lund Wednesday to discuss what Bochy should do when the starting pitching staff is fully stocked.
“If they want to bring Cueto back, but they are worried about overtaxing him, maybe they can even devise a schedule where Cueto is, they are trying to get him through this season, maybe he is a once-a-week pitcher,” Baggarly said. “They can not go with a six-man rotation because you want to keep (Bumgarner) on every fifth day, but they can even use the option game with some of these other guys to bring them up and down. I don’t think they will do that because that hasn’t really been Bruce Bochy’s style. But I think it’s an option that could be out there for them.”
The Giants offense averaged fewer than four runs per game during this eight-game stretch of success. The starting pitching, meanwhile, has produced six quality starts. And during the current four-game winning streak, the starting pitching has allowed just three combined runs in 25.4 innings pitched.
Samardzija has been in and out of the lineup throughout the 2018 season, but he has struggled when he has been activated, going 1-4 with a 6.56 ERA and 1.68 WHIP. Cueto, conversely, was one of the top pitchers in the majors throughout his five starts, producing a 3-0 record with a 0.84 ERA and 0.69 WHIP.
The last time Samardzija returned from the disabled list, he had made only one rehab start. The Giants may have rushed him back with the bleak state of the starting pitching staff in mind, but with its recent production, Bochy can be more patient this time around.
“I think we can cover ourselves a little bit better by being sure on this one, and make sure we have him to a point where we don’t have to be concerned with how many times he gets up,” Bochy said Wednesday.
The top-four starters in the Giants rotation is almost certainly Bumgarner, Cueto, Samardzija, and Holland. The No. 5 slot is much more precarious, and it may stay that way if Bochy decides to cycle San Francisco’s slew of young pitchers in and out of the lineup depending on health and matchups.
“It’s not like, ‘OK we are going to send this guy out and he has got to get through waivers, or we are going to lose him,’” Baggarly said. “That’s going to make some of these decisions a lot easier to make.”
Listen to the podcast below. Skip to the 12:15 mark to hear Baggarly talk about the rotation.