The Giants will activate southpaw Will Smith in time for Wednesday’s game, Alex Pavlovic of NBC Sports Bay Area was among those to report on Twitter. Smith worked back from Tommy John surgery that he underwent in late March of last year.
That’s obviously welcome news for the Giants, who entered play today with a .500 record. While the bulk of the relief corps has registered as a positive in the early going — including southpaw Tony Watson, who has been excellent — the added depth will surely not hurt the cause.
It’s tough to know what to expect out of Smith out of the gates. But the 28-year-old racked up 11 strikeouts without surrendering a walk in his 7 1/3 rehab innings, so the hope will surely be that he can hit the ground running.
Smith, of course, has ample late-inning experience and the stats to match, so the San Francisco organization will hope to return him to high-leverage spots sooner rather than later. In nearly 200 career innings as a reliever, Smith has held opposing hitters to a .221/.300/.365 slash line while carrying a 3.13 ERA.
The Giants, who dealt for Smith at the 2016 trade deadline, are paying him $2.5MM for the coming season after avoiding arbitration over the winter. He’ll be eligible for arbitration one final time this coming fall.
Off topic, but Astros are going to steamroll the AL.
The games best rotation, top 3 offense, strong bullpen… good prediction
So I assume that Snelten will be sent down then.
I could see them sending Osich down, but was snelten just on for the doubleheader mainly?
Osich is currently on the DL, so there’s still a need. It’s almost undoubtedly Snelten.
good guy, glad to see him back on the bump.
Now this is a story all about how
This team got flip turned upside down.
And I’d like to take a minute just sit right there,
I’ll tell you how they became the Fresh Mince of the Bay.
*I’ll tell you how the other teams smelled blood in the air.*
Glad to see he’s taking a break from his busy movie career to start for the Giants ..
Parents just don’t understand.
He’s a reliever…
snelten will have just a short stay. so tired of osich though get rid of him to a “contender” or a live A-ball arm and hope the smith signing wasnt a complete disaster. still prefer okert over osich in most situations
Osich has all the talent in the world but just can’t put it together… painful to watch… keep Snelten up
Osich looked great on spring training and the first 10 innings he pitched in 2018. He had returned to his delivery he used when he was a rookie but ending up the same way no control or just inconsistent and unreliable. Sad too cuz when he is on he paints corners with 95+ heaters and has off speed to mix in
Osich is on the disabled list. He likely won’t have a spot when he returns from the DL. Bochy carrying Smith and Watson, likely won’t want, or need another lefty.
I don’t see the smith trade as a disaster at all.. he was highly effective when he pitched for the giants although it was not as long as hoped he had club control and as we’ve seen TJ happens…. the disaster is on the 60 day dl and has almost been entirely written off by the fan base as a wasted 70 million Melancon!