As anticipated, veteran Giants hurler Johnny Cueto officially embarked upon a rehab assignment over the weekend. Journalist Alex Simon had the details (Twitter link; hat tip to Andrew Baggarly.)
Cueto’s return to a competitive pitching environment came almost exactly one year to the day of his 2018 Tommy John surgery. The 33-year-old has obviously made significant progress in his recovery and is now firmly on track to return to the MLB mound late this season.
The results were rather impressive for an initial showing, even if it came against rookie ball competition. Of his 21 pitches, Cueto threw 19 for strikes — seven of them of the swinging variety — while racking up five strikeouts in a pair of hitless innings. He was already sitting in the same range with his fastball that he did last year (90.5 mph). While that was a low point for the veteran, it seems promising that his arm speed is already at least to that level.
Unconvinced? Want to see it with your own eyes? Well, Cueto has you covered. He thoughtfully posted every pitch of his outing to his Instagram account.
Cueto is obviously excited about the prospect of a return, as Alex Pavlovic of NBC Sports Bay Area writes. The plan is for him to make another rookie ball outing before moving to the High-A level for several additional outings. Cueto will ultimately need at least two full tune-ups at the highest level of the minors before he makes it back to the MLB mound.
The Giants altered their trade deadline approach after a winning streak brought them back into the Wild Card picture, so Cueto could provide a nice boost this year. Regardless of how the standings look when he’s ready to return, Cueto will be looking to reesteablish his form before shutting things down for the offseason. The Giants owe him $21MM annually through 2021, along with a $5MM buyout on a 2022 club option.
Good news.
Everyone seems to forget that Cueto could give this Giants team a huge boost….. could. Well see what happens.
A boost that isn’t needed. Unless Bochy starts Solano over Crawford and Alex Dickerson makes a speedy recovery this team isn’t going anywhere. Dickerson was the offense. Now that Dickerson is on the IL the offense has died.
Donnie baseball
Still hoping someone kicks him in the face.
Is this an incitement to violence
More like retribution for when Cueto kicked Jason LaRue in the face with his spikes.
Chanting Cueto…. Cueto… Cueto *drops ball on the moind* and ERUPTING CUETO…. CUETO in Wild Card game vs the Reds my the highlight of my Pirates fandom….
What a great day.
That was a pretty intense scene, though Cueto did eventually go on to shine in a WS and win a ring.
Cueto will start to pitch, then pause at the top of his rehab, before surprising the hitter with a blazing throw.
wish they would have diagnosed him/shut him down earlier last year – last year was a lost year and thinking toward this year they could def use an extra month or so of him
Definitely need him back, soon hopefully.. Beede hasn’t pitched well as of late..
Neither has Anderson.
The guy is a hard worker when it comes to baseball. Hope he can come back and perform.
Any which way you slice it Cueto won’t be doing anything meaningful at the mlb level. If he even gets a couple starts what do Giant fans think he will go out there and pitch 9 innings a game down the stretch.
In all honesty you probably won’t even see him the closer you are in the WC standings.
He will not pitch in a meaningful game this year nor should he. Recovery time for TJS is 15-18 months Giants are not going to risk another year by pitching him in any pressure situations.
The highlight is though the Giants should have an ACE level pitcher ready by spring training next year.
Wow, logic, sorely missed nowadays.
9 innings is not required out of starting pitching these days. Be bitter about your teams trades this deadline somewhere else. I wish I could block on this site. I would pay for that feature
What the hell is this dude talking about? Smh, just because normally a tj surgery takes on average 15 months or longer makes no difference to where he is at in his recovery. Bochy stated he expects him on the mound this year before the 1st. He’s coming along way faster then most. Not every case of tj is the same. Cmon man.
Looks like he was facing a high school team.
Yeah that’s the league all the international free agents start out in
It’s not even a varsity high school team he faced
Go Johnny Go,Go!