Giants fans and their manager alike can breath easier after Friday night.
Bob Melvin and his pitching coach, Bryan Price, did not intend this year’s starting rotation to replicate last season’s, or its lack thereof. Given the hand they were dealt, however, with a rotation’s worth of pitchers on the injured list, they employed a bullpen game Friday night for the 12th time, asking Erik Miller to perform opening duties for a team-high ninth time this season.
After a 25-minute rain delay, the big-bodied left-hander retired the side, 1-2-3, and six relievers followed as the Giants’ latest — and, they hope, last — piecemeal pitching effort kept the Cleveland Guardians at bay, beginning a difficult series against the top team in the American League with a 4-2 win.
After taking two of three in Atlanta in the opening leg of the road trip, the Giants need to win only one of the final two games in Cleveland to secure their fourth series in a row. However, no task this season has proven more difficult than beating the Guardians at Progressive Field, where they are still an MLB-best 28-11 and have lost only one series all year.
Making his return from a two-week absence with a sprained ankle, Kyle Harrison will get first dibs at clinching the series Saturday and represents the first of a cavalcade of reinforcements to come, with Blake Snell, Robbie Ray and Alex Cobb all around the corner.
In the series opener, the Giants tasked nine innings to Miller, Spencer Bivens, Taylor Rogers, Randy Rodríguez, Ryan Walker, Tyler Rogers and Camilo Doval. They combined to scatter 11 hits and another five walks while limiting the lone Guardians damage to a solo shot from Josh Naylor in the fourth and one run that could have been more in the sixth.
After Rodríguez allowed runners to reach second and third with no outs in the sixth, he induced a sacrifice fly that ended up being the only run of what looked to be a troublesome inning after Melvin called on Walker, who got Bo Naylor swinging for the third out after Matt Chapman recorded the second out at the plate, fielding a chopper from Bryan Rocchio and catching David Fry in a rundown.
Doval and Tyler Rogers each had to work around the potential tying run on base in each of the eighth and the ninth innings.
The first two batters of the ninth reached base when Doval failed to cover first base and then walked the next batter on four pitches, but the game was over six pitches later, after Doval got Jose Ramirez to swing at a slider in the dirt for strike three and Josh Naylor to bounce a first-pitch cutter into a game-ending double play.
Rocchio’s two-out double off Rogers put the potential tying run at second base after Andrés Giménez reached on a comebacker the reliever wasn’t able to field, but Rogers escaped the inning with the 4-2 lead intact after getting Bo Naylor to end the inning again, grounding out to Brett Wisely at second.
The Giants spotted their menagerie of arms an early lead by pouncing on the Guardians starter, an uncharacteristically erratic Tanner Bibee, for three runs before Miller stepped on the mound and eventually opened a 4-0 advantage.
Entering the evening with a 3.47 ERA, Bibee walked four total batters in five June starts, and it had been almost two months, back to May 13, since he last issued two free passes in a start, but he put LaMonte Wade Jr. and Chapman on base in the first inning and missed his location badly with the bases loaded to Michael Conforto, who ripped a two-RBI double that made it 3-0.
Conforto stroked a letter-high curveball into right field to score Wade and Heliot Ramos, and he added a second double on a two-strike swing his next time up in the fourth, coming around to score when Bibee botched a bunt attempt by Nick Ahmed.
The pair of doubles gave Conforto only his second multi-hit effort in 27 games since returning from a hamstring strain. He was batting .280 with an .821 OPS when he went on the injured list but had seen both figures fall as low as .227 and .688 before heating up of late, with seven extra-base hits in his past 11 games, improving his average to .239 and his OPS to .743.
Miller has pitched a complete game’s worth of baseball in his nine times opening this season, allowing a run on only one occasion, and the Giants improved to 5-4 in those games — 7-5 in all their bullpen games. Their relievers have logged the most innings of any team in the majors.
Approaching the All-Star break, though, a real rotation is beginning to take shape. After Harrison, rookie Hayden Birdsong will make his third start to close the series Sunday, and after a day off Monday, the Giants will throw Snell, Logan Webb and Jordan Hicks against the Blue Jays; Harrison, Birdsong and Snell line up to face the Twins in their final series before the break.
Notable: OF Mike Yastrzemski returned to the lineup a day after being hit by a pitch in the elbow. He was not initially in the order but was inserted about two-and-a-half hours before first pitch and started in right field, striking out in all four of his trips to the plate.
Up next: LHP Kyle Harrison (4-3, 3.96) returns to the starting rotation against LHP Logan Allen (8-4, 5.75) in the second game of the series. First pitch is scheduled for 1:10 p.m. PT.