Jayne Kamin-Oncea-USA TODAY Sports
SCOTTSDALE, Ariz. — This wasn’t the first time Farhan Zaidi brought in Darin Ruf, but the slugger is trying to prolong the stint this time around.
Zaidi’s Dodgers traded with the Phillies for Ruf after the 2016 season — mostly as a salary-dump of Howie Kendrick — then sold Ruf’s contract to the Samsung Lions of the Korean Baseball Organization the following February, where the first baseman/left fielder would become a star.
After three seasons Ruf has returned, and so did Zaidi’s interest. The Giants need/needed a righty power hitter, and Ruf brings the kind of peripherals the team values.
“If you look at his strikeout rates, even in Korea, for a guy with that kind of power, they were relatively low,” Zaidi said of Ruf, whose major league whiff rate is 27.5 percent — pretty good for a 6-foot-3, 250-pound big guy. “We’ve talked a lot about wanting guys who make contact — that contact/power tradeoff he rates really pretty high on.”
Zaidi cited the fact that others have come from the KBO and excelled, Eric Thames most notably, and there’s reason to think that the 33-year-old’s surreal start to camp is not a total fluke. Plus, “he’s been a good hitter in the big leagues before,” Ruf’s best season coming in 2013, when he hit 14 home runs and slashed .247/.348/.458 in 73 games.
After Tuesday’s 16-3 loss to the Cubs, in which Ruf walked and flew out, the righty is 11-for-25 with three home runs, a triple and four doubles in the Cactus League.
“You get seven hits in a row, six extra-base hits, that’s a surprise to see anybody do that,” Zaidi, in a 20-minute sitdown with reporters Tuesday, said after Ruf’s streak ended. “But to see him come in and have a good spring, I don’t think that’s surprising.”
Zaidi did acknowledge the Giants will need a fifth starter “eventually,” but said the team doesn’t know yet if they’ll employ one right away. Because of off-days, they could begin with four.
The candidates Zaidi listed: Dereck Rodriguez, Logan Webb, Andrew Suarez, Trevor Cahill and Trevor Oaks.
Webb will be on an innings limit this year, though they could curtail him at season’s end rather than at the beginning.
“He’s very much in the running and if he’s the best, he’ll be the guy,” Zaidi said.
Zaidi said, “I don’t think there’s a favorite right now” for the closing job. And there isn’t a decision made yet about whether they indeed will have a regular ninth-inning man.
There is a two-catcher race in Giants camp for Buster Posey’s backup between Rob Brantly and Tyler Heineman, but Zaidi said if an outside candidate gets cut from another camp, they’ll be open-minded.
