Rhona Wise-USA TODAY Sports
If Camilo Doval wanted to know that he belongs, Jesus Aguilar’s bat and mouth told him so immediately.
A 97-mph fastball from the Giants righty, the first major league pitch of his life, caught the inside corner. Aguilar fought off a slider on the outside of the plate for a foul ball. The 0-2 slider was better, a nasty one down and away that the Marlins slugger waved at for the strikeout.
Head down, he returned to the dugout with a scream at himself.
Doval, who is from the Dominican Republic, was asked through translator Erwin Higueros if he could hear what Aguilar yelled. Higueros was not needed.
“F–k!” Doval said with a smile.
With a fastball that touched 98.3 mph and a slider that induced three whiffs off five swings, Doval has arrived. He entered a game the Giants were leading 1-0 in the seventh inning, which is a hell of a spot for a 23-year-old to make his MLB debut, and struck out Aguilar, got Garrett Cooper to ground out and froze Adam Duvall with a slider, showing the type of high-octane stuff that made the Giants drool and made the Giants add him to the 40-man roster last offseason.
He threw three pitches to Aguilar, and then he heard the outburst.
“Wow, is that how things are going to be up here?” he said he wondered, which is about as encouraging a first step as they come.
The Giants were ahead in the game but in a hole with their bullpen. After Alex Wood went just five — pulled as Gabe Kapler sought runs, pinch-hitting Wilmer Flores (who flew out) with the bases loaded — he had to find outs from a bullpen that was without Jake McGee and has a struggling Matt Wisler.
“It was either [Doval] or send out one of our lefties against the heart of that order,” Kapler said after the 1-0 win over the Marlins on Sunday. “Not the easiest task for Camilo.”
He sure made it look simple enough, stepping into a role that had never quite been occupied the last year-plus. Trevor Gott and Sam Coonrod, fireballing righties, had their share of struggles last season and then were forced off the roster. The Giants hoped Wisler could handle righties, but the slider-happy 28-year-old has allowed seven runs in four innings thus far. Reyes Moronta looked promising, even without his 98-mph heat, but was pushed to the IL with a right elbow flexor strain.
Perhaps Doval, who has not pitched above High-A apart from alternate sites this year and last, is that answer. He left his first major league game with the lineup card, something to hold on to.
As well as the memory of an All-Star slugger who knocked 35 homers in 2018 screaming obscenities.
Wood, whose Giants debut entailed five innings of shutout ball, was particularly happy with his slider, which drew eight whiffs in 18 swings.
Kapler said he could have pushed him more — he had gone just four up-and-downs in his last rehab start in Sacramento, yet was at 61 pitches Sunday — but he wanted to try for more offense.
“I felt really good,” Wood said over Zoom. “Through my rehab starts, my bullpens and everything, I’ve really felt like I’ve been throwing the ball well. Commanded the ball both sides of the plate.”
This was the third straight shutout that Curt Casali has started as the Giants’ catcher.
Alex Wood said all the catchers — mentioning Casali, Buster Posey, Chadwick Tromp, Joey Bart and Ricardo Genoves — set a good tone in camp with how much cared about preparation.
“I thought Curt did a great job today,” Wood said. “We got together yesterday, went over some stuff. Sat and talked for a while this morning, talked about the game plan with [Andrew Bailey], and he did a great job.”
Kapler said the swelling in Posey’s elbow, which was plunked Saturday, has gone down “a little bit,” but he’ll be checked again Monday.
The Giants called up Tromp and activated Wood after moving Logan Webb and McGee to the COVID IL, which has no minimum stay.
Webb and McGee recently had their second dose of the coronavirus vaccine, and Kapler said McGee had been “battling” some of the side effects during his blown save Saturday.
Webb, meanwhile, is still on schedule to start Tuesday in Philadelphia.