SAN FRANCISCO–Even though the San Francisco Giants entered Monday with a 50-76 record and were fresh off a brutal 5-2 loss that eliminated them from a National League West division race they never showed up for, the club still boasts a starting staff that includes seasoned, accomplished veterans like Madison Bumgarner, Johnny Cueto and Jeff Samardzija.
To say nothing has gone as planned for the 2017 Giants would be reciting an obvious theme, yet on Monday, the theme applied again.
With the Milwaukee in town, San Francisco finally notched its first home shutout of the season, becoming the last team in baseball to earn one in a 2-0 victory over the Brewers.
And yet, it wasn’t Bumgarner, Cueto or Samardzija who shut down the Brewers and kept Milwaukee scoreless, it was a rather unlikely candidate: rookie Chris Stratton.
Stratton didn’t exactly force his way up to the Major Leagues this season, either. The 26-year-old right-hander had compiled a 5.11 earned run average in 15 starts with AAA Sacramento this year, and was called up on two separate occasions this season to aid the Giants as a long reliever.
But when Matt Cain faltered in San Francisco’s rotation, Giants’ manager Bruce Bochy gave Stratton a chance to start. And lately, he’s been running with it.
On Monday evening, Stratton threw six shutout innings against a Milwaukee Brewers team in the thick of a playoff race, and his outing helped propel the Giants to a win.
“He had a long first inning there but he got out of that, settled down and just really pitched well,” Bochy said. “I mean, fastball was working well tonight. He pitched in and out with it and up and down. Had a good curveball going with a changeup and slider, everything. His pitch count was getting up there a little bit but he found a way to get through the sixth, did a good job in that inning and you know, for how we’re using him, he’s really handled it well.”
Bochy had to skip Stratton’s turn in the rotation after San Francisco kept Samardzija on regular rest following a postponement on last Friday in Washington, D.C., so the rookie wound up starting the first game of a doubleheader against the Nationals.
Against one of the top-performing offenses in baseball, Stratton logged 6.2 innings and amassed a career-high 10 strikeouts, besting his previous high of four. In that outing, Stratton unleashed a dominant curveball that boasts the best spin rate of any Major League curveball, and on Monday night, he was at it again. Though Stratton only wound up striking out one Milwaukee hitter, he rebounded from a 28-pitch first inning to shove six scoreless against a team in need of victories with a series against the Los Angeles Dodgers looming at the end of the week.
“It seems like that first inning is always a little tough for me, but I battled through,” Stratton said. “Hundley did a good job tonight calling pitches for me and we just executed a good game plan.”
In the past, Bochy has praised Stratton’s stuff, saying that the franchise’s first round draft pick back in 2012 has the “equipment” to succeed at the Major League level, but it’s unlikely the Giants believed Stratton would assimilate so well after enduring struggles with AAA Sacramento.
Though Stratton did have two strong starts with the Sacramento River Cats in between his first and second call-ups this season, he gave up five earned runs in his final start before his first appearance with the Giants and also had a late May start in which he allowed eight earned runs against the Memphis Redbirds. Now, in a span of eight days, he’s shut down the runaway leaders of the National League East and fended off a team in the heat of the National League Wildcard hunt.
On Monday, Stratton didn’t receive much run support, but he did receive a lift from the Giants’ offense in the bottom half of the fourth inning after Zach Davies, a 14-game winner for the Brewers this season, issued a leadoff walk to Jarrett Parker.
After Parker reached, a Hunter Pence single followed by a Brandon Crawford double plated the Giants’ first run of the game. Crawford’s liner down the right field line not only scored Parker, but it also extended the shortstop’s hitting streak to six games.
Later in the inning, catcher Nick Hundley drilled an RBI groundout to the right side of the infield to put San Francisco ahead 2-0.
That was all the help the Giants’ offense would give Stratton, but it wasn’t the only aid he received from his teammates. Cain, Mark Melancon and closer Sam Dyson all threw a scoreless inning to preserve the shutout, and lead San Francisco to a series-opener win.
All three relievers have an interesting story, as Stratton took Cain’s spot in the rotation, Melancon pitched on back-to-back days for the first time since May 19 and May 20, and Dyson began the year as the Rangers’ closer only to be designated for assignment after losing his grip on the role. So even though none of the three relievers were pitching in the role they envisioned themselves in at the start of the season, they all had a hand in the Giants’ first home shutout of 2017.
“We talked about it and he was ready to do it, ready to try it,” Bochy said of pitching Melancon on back-to-back days. “We had Cain on hold, we didn’t tell him he was done when he came in after the seventh just so when Mark went out there, if he didn’t quite feel right, Matt would have gone back out. He was good so he pitched the eighth and I won’t use him tomorrow. But you’re right, this was his first time back-to-back and he’s got enough outings to where we were comfortable doing it and he was comfortable doing it so it really worked out well because Strickland needed a day.”
The lone piece of disappointing news for the Giants on Saturday came in the eighth inning, when Sandoval was hit by a pitch on his wrist and needed to exit the game. The Giants already have three infielders on the disabled list with injuries, including starting first baseman Brandon Belt and starting second baseman Joe Panik, which has limited their depth over the past week.
