Rick Scuteri-USA TODAY Sports
San Diego has not been overly unfriendly to the Giants, whose fans can take over Petco Park. If there is no love lost between the Giants and Dodgers, there is some love lost between the Giants and Padres, who both have the common enemy.
Perhaps that can change as the Padres rise, a sudden superpower with sparkling youth and that brought in established stars this offseason, including Blake Snell and Yu Darvish. They both want to catch Los Angeles, though the Padres are far closer in that hunt.
So Anthony DeSclafani is not entering a lions’ den. But the Giants’ Monday starter will be the first to see opposing divisional fans during the season after a campaign that had no voices in seats. DeSclafani will be cheered by the orange and black-clad fans and booed by the Friars’ supporters.
He will appreciate whatever noises come at him.
“I think there was still adrenaline last year just [because] you’re still at the highest stage, competing against some of the best players,” DeSclafani said this weekend, “but there’s that next level that you don’t reach unless there’s that crowd noise, whether you’re getting booed or whether you’re getting cheered. I don’t mind being booed. I think it’s still energy that’s being directed toward the game, and you can feed off of it.”
So you’re looking forward to getting booed again? He laughed.
“It can all be channeled in and used to an advantage,” DeSclafani said.
The Giants did not get booed much in Seattle, although there were plenty of “Woo!”s. Last year, home parks exclusively had to use artificial crowd noise to imitate the feel of a game, which was deemed necessary but appreciated by few.
This year, the next incremental step of the pandemic recovery has seen parks open up the stands again, but not to everyone. Petco Park has a capacity right now of about 8,500, who are spaced out and strangely heard more than fans at a filled-up stadium.
It is like the feel of a high-school game, in which individual voices can be picked out without the hum of other voices drowning them out. If DeSclafani has hecklers, he will be able to hear them.
There will be bigger worries for the 30-year-old righty, of course. The Giants bumped Logan Webb ahead of him in the rotation, perhaps because of Webb’s bright spring or perhaps because DeSclafani is better equipped to handle the San Diego lineup right away. There are few better and deeper lineups, and DeSclafani, who faced it less than two weeks ago, can testify to that.
He pitched four innings against the Padres on March 24 in Scottsdale, against a lineup that lacked Fernando Tatis Jr. but still had plenty of its weapons. Tommy Pham, Manny Machado, Jake Cronenworth and Eric Hosmer were the top four, which will be familiar Monday night.
The exhibition worked out well for DeSclafani, who struck out eight in four-plus innings while allowing one run (a home run to Wil Myers).
“I think just having the visual of where the guys are at in the box with swings and all that stuff is helpful,” said the former Reds starter on Saturday, before adding that Sunday and Monday would be for taking “a deeper dive into some of the game-plan stuff and go from there.”
The Giants signed DeSclafani, who had a solid season with Cincinnati as recently as 2019, because they like the Kevin Gausman-like upside from a pitcher who last year had injury and effectiveness struggles.
Like seemingly everyone around the team, his pitch mix has changed. There are fewer mid-90s fastballs, there’s a slider that he’s throwing a bit harder, there’s a slower curveball and a changeup that the Giants have talked up.
He can take a first step toward becoming this season’s Gausman while facing lefty Adrián Morejón in front of a crowd who, mostly, will be rooting against him. And that’s fine with him.