SAN DIEGO \u2014 The moment called for Robbie Ray to empty the tank.<\/p>\n
It\u2019s one thing to recognize when you\u2019re facing your last hitter of the night. It\u2019s another to recognize when you\u2019re almost certainly facing your last hitter in a San Francisco Giants uniform. For Ray, there was no sense in leaving anything sloshing around in the tank in the sixth inning Thursday night, especially when you\u2019re about to trade in the whole car for something souped up and shinier.<\/p>\n
With the trade deadline approaching Monday and Ray among the impending free agents almost certain to be dealt to a contender, the Giants accepted some degree of risk when they let the left-hander take the mound against the San Diego Padres at Petco Park on Thursday night. In case you haven\u2019t noticed, tempting fate hasn\u2019t worked out so well for the Giants this season.<\/p>\n
But Ray provided a fitting coda to his two-plus seasons as a Giant, plus a solid audition that might have boosted the club\u2019s asking price. He worked up a sweat, mixed five pitch shapes and held the Padres to a run on four hits in six innings. Catcher Daniel Susac followed up Wednesday\u2019s two-home-run game by smacking a two-run shot, and the Giants bullpen didn\u2019t break down while protecting a 4-1 victory.<\/p>\n
Ray soaked up the pitch clock in the sixth inning, giving himself every second of recovery time as he grunted through his final pitches. He threw his hardest fastballs of the night \u2014 a 95 mph four-seam fastball and then a 95 mph two-seamer \u2014 while rallying from a 3-0 count to strike out Manny Machado. After he got Ty France to chase a changeup at the shoe tops, Ray punched his glove, wiped his brow, gave Susac a fist tap and accepted waves of congratulations in the dugout.<\/p>\n
This is hug watch season. Ray\u2019s teammates didn\u2019t wait for trade news to show him their appreciation. Logan Webb gave him a particularly long and heartfelt embrace.<\/p>\n
\u201cIt\u2019s been a tough year as a team,\u201d Ray said. \u201cWe\u2019re not where we want to be. But I feel like I\u2019ve put myself in a good position, gone out every day and tried to give my team a chance to win.\u201d<\/p>\n
Why is everyone watching for hugs before the trade deadline?<\/p>\n
Tyler Kepner and Lauren Morales-Jones<\/p>\n
Ray, 34, came to the Giants in a January 2024 trade that was among the most inspired of Farhan Zaidi\u2019s tenure as president of baseball operations. The 2021 AL Cy Young Award winner was in the middle of an arduous rehab process, recovering from surgeries to reconstruct the flexor tendon and the ulnar collateral ligament in his left elbow. His employer, the Seattle Mariners, was dealing with financial uncertainty following the disintegration of their regional sports network. The Mariners essentially wrote down the rest of Ray\u2019s five-year, $115 million contract while taking on the dead money owed to declining outfielder Mitch Haniger and injured right-hander Anthony DeSclafani.<\/p>\n
\u201cSuper thankful (I was) given the opportunity mid-rehab to come over here and continue the rehab process here,\u201d Ray said. \u201cTraining staff has been amazing, and just (getting) the opportunity to pitch \u2026 get back on the field and do what I love to do. They\u2019ve given me a chance to come back from that injury and just thankful for that.\u201d<\/p>\n
His results were predictably uneven when he returned in 2024, and in hindsight, it was unfair to expect him to serve as the second-half cavalry for a team that didn\u2019t pitch well enough down the stretch to make the playoffs. But the payoff came last year when Ray was 9-3 with a 2.65 ERA in his first 20 starts and joined Webb on the National League All-Star team.<\/p>\n
Ray expanded the fastball-slider repertoire that helped him win a Cy Young with the Toronto Blue Jays, committing to a changeup that helped him dominate during stretches last season. He reinvented himself some more this season, turning to a sinking, two-seam fastball and dusting off a knuckle curve.<\/p>\n
He isn\u2019t throwing quite as hard as before. He isn\u2019t pitching as deeply into games, completing more than seven innings just twice in 21 starts this year. His walk rate is up and his strikeout rate is down. But he\u2019s taught a master class in situational pitching while preventing big innings and giving a flawed team a chance to win.<\/p>\n
Throw out his one abysmal start (4 1\/3 innings, nine earned runs) May 18 at Arizona and Ray has a 2.51 ERA this season. He is 6-0 with a 1.65 ERA over his last 10 assignments.<\/p>\n
\u201cI feel like I\u2019ve been locked in lately,\u201d Ray said. \u201cMy last two in particular, I felt like I was on cruise control. Didn\u2019t really feel pressured all that much. Just felt like I was in flow state the whole time, felt comfortable with all my pitches in any situation. As a starting pitcher, that\u2019s where you want to be to be able to turn over a lineup three times, and I feel like that\u2019s kind of where I\u2019ve been.\u201d<\/p>\n
Ray might not fit atop a playoff rotation for any team that acquires him. But there are sure to be contenders that will view him as a solid upgrade or depth piece, and if the big names like Tarik Skubal get moved with days or hours to spare, the Giants figure to have a little more juice to squeeze.<\/p>\n
Replacing Ray in the Giants rotation is a short-term concern, but it\u2019s a question the club will have to address. Perhaps they\u2019ll get back a young, controllable starter for Ray, Luis Arraez or Tyler Mahle. This much is reasonable to believe: Considering the players who are about to walk out the door, it won\u2019t be easy for the Giants to pile up moral victories and play cleaner baseball the rest of the way.<\/p>\n
The Giants haven\u2019t won four consecutive games all season, but they\u2019ve won in 10 of Ray\u2019s last 12 starts. The Catholic Church has beatified saints for lesser miracles.<\/p>\n
Ray will be owed a little less than $8 million the rest of this season, which should not impede a trade. The Giants have the wherewithal to pay down some of that money to widen the field and involve contenders with greater financial restraints. Even when dealing with teams that can afford to pay the full freight, the Giants must be willing to kick in money if it means they can extract more talent.<\/p>\n
After all, it\u2019s not as if the franchise is operating with an empty tank.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"SAN DIEGO \u2014 The moment called for Robbie Ray to empty the tank. It\u2019s one thing to recognize…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":795722,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[65],"tags":[363,2329,99],"class_list":["post-795721","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-mlb","tag-mlb","tag-san-francisco-giants","tag-sports"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/795721","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=795721"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/795721\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/795722"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=795721"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=795721"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=795721"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}