SAN FRANCISCO (AP) \u2014 The San Francisco Giants sent struggling reliever Ryan Walker to Triple-A Sacramento on Sunday following his fourth straight outing when he allowed at least one run.<\/p>\n
The move with Walker was one of several made before the Giants played a series finale against the Pittsburgh Pirates. Right-hander Gregory Santos also was optioned to Sacramento, while lefty Sam Hentges was activated from his rehabilitation assignment and righty Dylan Smith was called up from Triple-A.<\/p>\n
Walker began the season as the Giants’ primary closer after leading the team with 17 saves last season but was unable to hold that role. After saving back-to-back games against the Los Angeles Dodgers late last month, Walker has been ineffective.<\/p>\n
He allowed seven runs and nine hits with four walks in 3 1\/3 innings over his past four appearances with two blown saves. He allowed two runs, while retiring only two batters, in a 13-3 loss to Pittsburgh on Saturday night to raise his ERA on the season to 6.46 and lead to the demotion to the minors.<\/p>\n
Manager Tony Vitello said he believes Walker needs to regain his confidence and he is hopeful a stint in the minors will help.<\/p>\n
\u201cHe\u2019s the same guy skill-wise,” Vitello said. \u201cI do think our pitching coaches identified some things physically that he\u2019s strayed from that when he\u2019s been at his best. Whether it\u2019s posture or how he\u2019s thrown a couple particular pitches. But I think he would agree, too, so I don\u2019t think I\u2019m speaking out of turn, I think it all starts with the mind and what kind of information you\u2019re feeding it.\u201d<\/p>\n
Hentges began the season on the injured list after being signed as a free agent in the offseason. He had a 1.93 ERA in 10 outings in the minors on a rehab assignment before getting called up. He last pitched in the majors in 2024 for Cleveland and has a 4.18 ERA over four seasons in the majors.<\/p>\n
Santos also allowed two runs in 1 1\/3 innings on Saturday and San Francisco needed fresh arms in the bullpen.<\/p>\n
Smith was acquired from Detroit in March and has a 2.13 ERA in nine appearances with Sacramento.<\/p>\n
The Giants entered the day tied for the worst record in the National League at 15-24. They have tried to shake up the roster this week, calling up slugger Bryce Eldridge from the minors on Monday and trading catcher Patrick Bailey to Cleveland on Saturday.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"SAN FRANCISCO (AP) \u2014 The San Francisco Giants sent struggling reliever Ryan Walker to Triple-A Sacramento on Sunday…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":188853,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[9],"tags":[84179,33197,84182,27762,72039,73,75,74,27757,72173,84183,59311,84181,84178,84180],"class_list":["post-188852","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-pittsburgh","tag-bryce-eldridge","tag-dylan-smith","tag-gregory-santos","tag-package-100502-member-choice-sports-option","tag-patrick-bailey","tag-pittsburgh","tag-pittsburgh-headlines","tag-pittsburgh-news","tag-product-30599-ap-sports-news-s-wire-only","tag-product-40776-ap-california-sports-only","tag-ryan-walker","tag-sacramento","tag-sam-hentges","tag-san-francisco-giants-ryan-walker","tag-tony-vitello"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/188852","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=188852"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/188852\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/188853"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=188852"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=188852"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=188852"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}