Giants Bulletin: Rotation, Bullpen and roster bubble as Scottsdale departure looms

This time next week, the Giants will be at Oracle Park fervently preparing for a stand-alone MLB season opening clash with the New York Yankees. It’s that close. So close, that the Giants’ strengths and weaknesses are becoming increasingly clear. 

Logan Webb will make his fifth straight Opening Day start, but what comes after Robbie Ray is a bit more of a question mark. Will Luis Matos, out of minor league options after three years of pinballing and never truly finding a rhythm, make the roster? How will Daniel Susac fare as the go to backup behind Patrick Bailey? 

If the Giants thin bullpen was a dead horse, the bulletin would still be beating the pulp out of it. That’s how worrisome it is, especially considering that a first year manager with no professional experience will be pulling the strings. Simply put, a stable that consists of almost no one with a sustained track record of Major League success won’t cut it for Vitello. 

Kerry Crowley offered up an enticing option for Buster Posey to improve the Giants’ roster. He filled in for Markus Boucher on the morning show, and played GM as the duo explained roster insecurities ahead of Opening Day. Great teams can afford to stash position player depth, the Giants cannot. Flip Casey Schmitt, a proven Major League asset currently enjoying a great spring, for a reliever that can make an immediate impact and be developed into a legitimate leverage arm. 

Most Giants fans remember where they were in September of 2013, when Yusmeiro Petit came oh so close to tossing a perfect game. Hunter Pence’s dive in right field almost completed the feat, but he settled for a CGSO. The Giants were almost perfect on Sunday afternoon. With two outs in the ninth, a walk and then a double severed the hopes of an ultra-rare exhibition perfecto and no no. It was Tony Vitello’s former Tennessee player Blake Burke whose two out double ended the no hitter. 

The famous Arizona heat is generally never a huge issue with Spring Training, as the temperate weeks of February and March usually make for a pristine baseball climate. The stifling heat has arrived early this year, along with unseasonable warmth across the entire American west. The Rockies announced that due to the extreme heat expected in the Phoenix valley on Thursday, the game against the Giants has been moved from an early afternoon start to an evening start. 

It seems like the Giants just arrived at Scottsdale Stadium. In a week they’ll depart for the Bay Area and the dawn of an unprecedented era.