SAN FRANCISCO — The Giants held a razor-thin margin against the worst team in the major leagues Monday night. And they were forced into a heck of a lot of improvisation while attempting to protect it.
They didn’t have their usual choices to pitch the ninth inning. Their original closer, Camilo Doval, was at Triple-A Sacramento. Their new closer, Ryan Walker, was off limits after making a rare, two-inning appearance at Oakland the previous day. So Jordan Hicks, who began the season by logging 100 innings in the rotation, drew the assignment.
They didn’t have their usual presence behind the plate, either. Starting catcher Patrick Bailey was a late scratch. Bailey, who is batting .115 since the All-Star break, took a slew of swings in early cage work while searching for solutions. He ended up working his way into the trainer’s room with side tightness. So backup catcher Curt Casali received late word that he’d start behind the plate.
Hicks protected the Giants’ 5-3 victory over the Chicago White Sox. But not before giving up a pair of singles. Not before uncorking a series of wild misses while straining to record the final out. Not before Casali made some diving, lunging and smothering saves to keep those runs from scoring. And not before tens of thousands of lumps formed in tens of thousands of throats at the Giants’ waterfront ballpark.
Casali contributed the RBI single that touched off the Giants’ four-run fifth inning, Hicks coaxed the pair of fly balls he needed to escape the ninth, and sure, perhaps a stronger team puts away an opponent that entered with a 30-95 record. Instead, it felt like another coin flip of an ending. For the Giants to rattle off the kind of winning streak that it’ll take to make a push in the NL wild-card standings, they’ll probably need to win a few games while breathing easier. They’ll probably need to find their way to a few handshake lines while also conserving resources for those victories that will require them to empty the tank.
Diagon Rally pic.twitter.com/tIWEbPRDin
— SFGiants (@SFGiants) August 20, 2024
Maybe it’s not a great sign that it took every last snout and sinew of their roster to turn aside an opponent that hasn’t won a road series since the first week of May.
But it’s better than not showing any fight at all.
“Guys like him know how to protect the lead,” Giants manager Bob Melvin, himself a former backup catcher, said of Casali. “He knows how to call pitches. He knows the opponent. Nice resource to have.”
Casali hadn’t recorded an RBI since June 16. His average had fallen to .179. He started just three games in August as the Giants leaned more and more on Bailey, whose defense has not spiraled along with his second-half hitting. Bailey leads all major leaguers in Fielding Run Value with plus-19. His framing skills became too valuable to rest on the bench.
But Casali stayed ready. He made sure to catch at least one starting pitcher’s bullpen per week. He did extra drills with catching coach Alex Burg. He would simulate at-bats in the indoor cage between innings. Casali took part in the pregame meeting Monday afternoon even though he wasn’t slated to catch left-hander Kyle Harrison. When Bailey’s side tightened up, Casali was prepared to step in.
“It’s not easy, for sure, but being a regular is not easy, either,” Casali said. “In a perfect world, I’m ready to go. I’m generally always fresh, so … They told me a little late, but it’s what I get paid to do.”
Casali hasn’t started consecutive games since May 18-19. The 35-year-old catcher is likely to take on that workload Tuesday night. Bailey termed his side discomfort as “very, very mild” but isn’t expected to start Tuesday as the Giants attempt to avoid a stint on the 10-day injured list. It’s just one more potential dent on an imperfect team that is 64-63 and 3 1/2 games behind the Atlanta Braves for the third and final wild-card spot.
Kyle Harrison earned the win against Chicago, going six innings, allowing one run and striking out five. (Sergio Estrada / USA Today)
The Giants will continue to rely on Harrison, who exceeded his career high for innings in a season while holding the White Sox to a run through the sixth. They’ll rely on Hicks to come through in his share of leveraged spots whether they can reincorporate Doval into the late-inning mix again or not. And they’ll hope that a healthier version of Thairo Estrada, who was activated from the injured list Monday afternoon, will address a season-long vacuum of production at second base.
Estrada made an immediate contribution with his glove, snaring a 107 mph grounder off the bat of Luis Robert Jr. and starting a double play to help Harrison escape a bases-loaded jam in the third inning. Estrada also lined a one-out single and scored the first run in the Giants’ fifth-inning rally.
It’ll be a critical six-week stretch for Estrada, who is at something of a career crossroads. Before landing on the injured list with finger and wrist issues, his .249 on-base percentage was the fourth worst out of 220 major league hitters with at least 300 plate appearances. He contributed the bulk of playing time at a position where the Giants ranked last in the National League with minus 1.9 Wins Above Average.
Estrada is making $4.7 million this season and without a September resurgence, it’s hard to envision that the Giants would tender him a contract in November as a third-year arbitration-eligible player — especially when second base might be a convenient landing spot for hitting prospect Marco Luciano.
Estrada, 28, says he feels 100 percent now. So we’re about to find out how much his months of struggles at the plate were due to the wrist and hand issues. We’re about to find out whether he chased pitches so frequently because he was swinging one-handed and had to start his bat early to catch up to fastballs. If Estrada can return to his production from the previous two seasons, when he moved runners with his ability to shoot pitches to right field, made things happen on the basepaths, and occasionally popped one over the fence, then he could help to solve their situational hitting woes.
“You depend on your hands for a lot of things,” Estrada said through Spanish interpreter Erwin Higueros. “You can have pain in any other part of your body but if your hands are healthy, you’ll be able to play. It’s hard to say just by me coming in, we’ll score more runs. That is not easy to do. But be assured that once I’m out there, I’ll give my 100 percent.
“I have talent, I’m going to give 100 percent and compete and help the team win.”
Chappy Christmas, Harry! pic.twitter.com/zqEdDvqncY
— SFGiants (@SFGiants) August 20, 2024
Perhaps the Giants’ brightest ray of hope is the fact that the team they are chasing is not 100 percent, either. The Atlanta Braves were already persevering through the loss of Ronald Acuña Jr. and Spencer Strider. Now they learned on Monday that All-Star third baseman Austin Riley will be out for six to eight weeks with a fractured hand. Sure, the Giants also must catch the New York Mets, whom they trail by two games. And because the Giants do not hold the tiebreaker over Atlanta, they’ll need to finish one game better than the Braves in the final standings.
Maybe it’s difficult to picture the Giants, with a daunting schedule in September, surging to a 20-win month. But it might be easier to picture the Braves going into a tailspin.
Perhaps the Giants keep proving that they are little better than a .500 team. But what if the third NL wild card only needs to be a smidge better than that?
(Top photo of Curt Casali hitting an RBI single in the fifth inning: Sergio Estrada / USA Today)
