Kyle Terada-USA TODAY Sports
For his first four games, Joey Bart asserted himself as the new Giants catcher, the present looking magical.
On Game Five, well, there was a lot of talk about the future.
Bart is still undefeated, 5-0 and on pace to go 162-0 each year of his career, though he surely looked less polished in a 10-8 victory over the Dodgers at Oracle Park on Tuesday, when he struggled in every facet of the game.
His 0-for-5 with three strikeouts can be forgiven, a slugger who had barely played above Class-A entering this year looking rawer against excellent Dodgers arms. Of those five misses, three came with runners in scoring position and he grounded into a double play, but his bat has showed plenty early.
More concerning is the less tangible communication issues he had with Johnny Cueto, the two not on the same page and perhaps not the same book during Cueto’s troubling four-plus innings, in which he allowed six runs. Bart had to make a pair of mound visits to discuss the strategy and pitch selection with a righty who has enjoyed his connection with Chadwick Tromp, who speaks Spanish and who had caught him every start since his promotion.
Cueto was understanding and not publicly calling for change.
“I’m not going to blame him. I’m not going blame anybody,” Cueto said over Zoom through translator Erwin Higueros. “There is no excuse for what happened in the game, for what I did. He’s the future of the franchise. He’s young, we will work together, and we will get to know each other.
“I’m not easy to catch — I like to work fast, I like to do different things, and it was the first time me working with him. We will get through this. So there’s nobody here at fault.”
It was easier to fault Bart in the 10th inning while again struggling to catch a pitcher he was unfamiliar with, this time Jarlin Garcia. Bart apparently got crossed up on a fastball that was in the zone — though it was called a ball, the 23-year-old not catching it and letting it get past him. Justin Turner, the baserunner who started the extra inning on second, took off for third, and a good throw may have had him.
Instead, Bart threw very wide and high of Evan Longoria, allowing the go-ahead run to score.
“This is just part of a young player in the early stages of his major league career, who’s going to have the game move really fast at times,” Gabe Kapler said after the Giants won it in the 11th with a Donovan Solano walk-off homer. “I don’t think any of us thought that he was going to go out and catch the ideal game every time out or hit doubles and have great at-bats every time he walked up to the plate, I just don’t think that’s realistic. He’s a young, very talented, super smart player, but he’s going to have growing pains.”
In the bottom of the 10th, Bart was the ghost runner on second and took off for third on Steven Duggar’s ground ball to shortstop. Corey Seager threw across the diamond, though, sparing a worse day for a catcher who was amid his worst in the big leagues.
There will be better days and a lot of them. He’s the catcher of the now and the later, and an off day in every department will not change that.
Even Cueto, who surely would prefer Tromp as the other end of the battery, understood they will have to make it work.
The inexperience will show, but so will the potential.
“I think it’s important to the Giants that we’re able to write Joey Bart’s name in the lineup no matter who’s on the mound,” Kapler said.