The Giants reinstated third baseman Evan Longoria prior to this afternoon’s matchup with the Rockies. He’s at the hot corner and hitting third against Colorado starter Chad Kuhl in his season debut. In a corresponding move, reliever Jake McGee has been placed on the 15-day injured list due to lower back tightness.
Longoria underwent surgery to repair a ligament tear in his right index finger late in Spring Training. That procedure wound up costing him the first five weeks of the regular season, and the Giants have patched third base together in his absence. Five different players have started multiple games there for San Francisco, with Wilmer Flores and Jason Vosler picking up the bulk of the time. The group has acquitted themselves quite well, with Giants’ third basemen combining for a .277/.330/.436 slash line that translates to a 120 wRC+ (indicating offensive productivity 20 percentage points above the league average). That ranks 13th among the league’s 30 teams.
San Francisco is off to another nice start. Their 18-12 record is unsurprisingly short of last season’s 107-win pace, but it’s still the fifth-best mark in the National League. The entire NL West has come out of the gates well, though, and the Giants sit a few games behind the Dodgers and Padres in the division standings.
Longoria was a big part of the team’s incredible 2021 campaign. The veteran hit .261/.351/.482, improbably rebounding from four straight pedestrian seasons with a bounceback year at age 35. A shoulder injury kept the three-time All-Star to playing in exactly half the team’s games, but that marked Longoria’s best production on a rate basis during his time in the Bay Area.
McGee was also a pivotal player in last year’s success. The left-hander tossed 59 2/3 innings of 2.72 ERA ball, saving 31 games in the process. It was a continuation of the strong work he’d shown in the shortened 2020 season with the Dodgers, but he’s scuffled in the early going this year. McGee has been tagged for 12 runs in his first 10 1/3 frames, striking out just six batters on a personal-low 8.4% swinging strike rate. The team hasn’t provided a timetable for his return.
Good roster move. The only thing McGee likely injured was his ERA in his last 2 outings. His fastball is down 2-3 mph. He’ll be fine after a short break.
Not just a break but learn some new pitches!
It’s entirely possible the drop in velocity is due to him not having his normal delivery and freedom of movement because of the back. It could be he tried to pitch through it, and they’ve come to the realization that he can’t.
“Lower back tightness”
McGee is washed. Longo probably is too.
McGee has been terrible this year, he is a one-pitch pitcher (fastball) which is an issue, today’s hitters feast off of fastballs especially if they know that is all he throws. Hide him in the minors until he rebounds.
His pitch selection shouldn’t be the problem. He’s always been a FB/slider guy. He hasn’t thrown a breaking ball, other than the slider, since 2019 when he threw a curve, and even then it was never as much as 9% of the time.
He throws the FB over a little over 80% of the time, and the rest of time he throws a slider. That’s probably enough to keep hitters honest.
The velo seems to be okay. He doesn’t throw as hard as he did back in 2013-14 when he topped 97, but his FB this year is better than his average since 2016. It’s reasonable to think he can get back to something close to last season’s form.
I’m hoping Longoria has at least one more good season in him. I feel like prior to 2012 he was a potential HOF player, but it’s been such a short peak for him that he’d need to sling together like 3 more AS seasons to get there.
They needed an IL. Tough roster decision avoided.
Chad Kuhl aiming for Cy Young.
Longo’s lifetime WAR is pretty close to Scott Rolen’s. If he has a couple more good years he’ll be in the HOF conversation. The dude is a conditioning fanatic. I hope he pulls an Adrian Beltre and rocks it until he turns 40. He is a great teammate.