{"id":273934,"date":"2026-04-18T08:00:30","date_gmt":"2026-04-18T08:00:30","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/273934\/"},"modified":"2026-04-18T08:00:30","modified_gmt":"2026-04-18T08:00:30","slug":"could-daniel-susac-snag-more-starts-from-patrick-bailey-for-giants","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/273934\/","title":{"rendered":"Could Daniel Susac snag more starts from Patrick Bailey for Giants?"},"content":{"rendered":"

CINCINNATI\u00a0\u2014 The debate over the San Francisco Giants<\/a>\u2019 catchers\u00a0\u2014 who plays, who sits, and how often \u2014 appears to be moving into Phase 2.<\/p>\n

Patrick Bailey<\/a>, the starter and a two-time Gold Glove winner, is known for his defense rather than his bat, but even for a player who doesn\u2019t hit much, he has struggled in the extreme, with a .128 average after Thursday\u2019s win over the Reds. His backup, Daniel Susac, is a Rule 5 pick who\u2019s hitting so well that his lack of experience handling a big-league staff is ever less of a factor.<\/p>\n

The biggest consideration of all? The Giants as a team have put up pitiful offensive numbers to start the season, with the fewest runs and homers in the majors. Susac\u2019s 9-for-16 start stands out among the shambles that is much of the lineup.<\/p>\n

Fans have clamored for more Susac, small sample size or not, and on Thursday morning manager Tony Vitello<\/a> indicated that the rookie\u2019s playing time won\u2019t just increase\u00a0\u2014 he might start splitting time with the game\u2019s best defensive catcher.<\/p>\n

Asked about the catching spot going forward, Vitello said of Susac, \u201cI think involving him, as much as possible, see if we get into an every other day situation, or whatever it might be.\u201d<\/p>\n

Bailey is realistic about the situation. \u201cI\u2019ve got to play better,\u201d he said after Thursday\u2019s win over the Reds<\/a>. \u201cI\u2019ve got to be better at the plate.\u201d<\/p>\n

With a day game after a night game, Bailey was behind the plate Thursday, working with starter Landen Roupp<\/a>. Vitello said that Susac was available to pinch-hit later in the game, something he has shown a willingness to do in the ninth inning twice in the past week.\u00a0<\/p>\n

Bailey remains tops in the majors in pitch framing, even with the advent of baseball\u2019s new ABS-enabled challenge system, getting strike calls on nearly 50% of pitches in the \u201cshadow zone\u201d around the strike zone, giving him an MLB-best plus-2 in pitch framing. He also has the best pop time on throws in the majors, but has caught only two of 13 would-be base stealers so far; Susac has thrown out one of the two attempts against him.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"CINCINNATI\u00a0\u2014 The debate over the San Francisco Giants\u2019 catchers\u00a0\u2014 who plays, who sits, and how often \u2014 appears…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":273935,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[30],"tags":[10897,25615,101,4820,103,102,104,106,105,127,10892],"class_list":{"0":"post-273934","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-san-francisco","8":"tag-giants","9":"tag-patrick-bailey","10":"tag-san-francisco","11":"tag-san-francisco-giants","12":"tag-san-francisco-headlines","13":"tag-san-francisco-news","14":"tag-sf","15":"tag-sf-headlines","16":"tag-sf-news","17":"tag-sports","18":"tag-tony-vitello"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/273934","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=273934"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/273934\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/273935"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=273934"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=273934"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=273934"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}