resigned Lucchesi<\/a> to a minor-league deal on Monday, perhaps anticipating the bad news about Sanmartin. There\u2019s also Sam Hentges, who signed a one-year deal for $1.4M but has had serious surgeries on his shoulder and knee in the last 18 months and won\u2019t be available when the season starts.<\/p>\nIs this an issue? Sort of! The Giants are following what\u2019s been a league-wide trend where left-handed relievers have become more scarce. Thanks to the new rule, implemented in 2020, that relievers had to face at least three batters, the \u201cLOOGY\u201d (left-handed one-out guy) has disappeared. Frankly, Barry Bonds was supporting a whole division\u2019s worth of LOOGIES for years \u2014 Chuck McElroy and Mike Myers were able to put their kids through college purely due to facing Bonds and then leaving the game before Jeff Kent hit.<\/p>\n
Still, in a division where the Giants have to face elite left-handed hitters like Shohei Ohtani, Kyle Tucker, Freddie Freeman, and Max Muncy on the Dodgers alone, not to mention Corbin Carroll, Jackson Merrill and other lefties whose names don\u2019t rhyme, having southpaws in the bullpen does seem important!<\/p>\n
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Maybe the signing of Lucchesi, who was fine-to-good last season, and Miller\u2019s return to health will solve this issue. Maybe Gage will settle down and Hentges will come back refreshed.<\/p>\n
But right now, the bullpen is short on left-handed relief help, and if it continues like this, Buster Posey is going to make Aaron Fultz and Jack Taschner cry.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Last season, the San Francisco Giants defied conventional bullpen wisdom by deciding that left-handed relievers weren\u2019t important. They…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":517666,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[65],"tags":[12402,2319,12946,4279,190900,8965,233976,59684,32585,158732,10006,95307,3963,363,233974,162707,2329,3956,99,233975,39465],"class_list":{"0":"post-517665","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-mlb","8":"tag-buster-posey","9":"tag-cincinnati-reds","10":"tag-corbin-carroll","11":"tag-dodgers","12":"tag-erik-miller","13":"tag-freddie-freeman","14":"tag-giants-bullpen","15":"tag-jackson-merrill","16":"tag-javy-lopez","17":"tag-joey-lucchesi","18":"tag-kyle-tucker","19":"tag-matt-gage","20":"tag-max-muncy","21":"tag-mlb","22":"tag-reiver-sanmartin","23":"tag-sam-hentges","24":"tag-san-francisco-giants","25":"tag-shohei-ohtani","26":"tag-sports","27":"tag-team-colombia","28":"tag-the-giants"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/517665","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=517665"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/517665\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/517666"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=517665"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=517665"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=517665"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}