The picture posted at 4:14 a.m., an hour when nothing good ever happens on social media. It was taken in the recovery room, presumably. It showed Brandon Belt, fully abed and bearded, wearing one of those hospital-blue O.R. caps along with an expression of milky somnolence — eyes mostly closed, lips barely parted.
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There was no caption.
By the late afternoon, the Giants’ cleanup-hitting first baseman, the guy who ranked second in the NL in WAR and third in OPS, who was potentially playing his way to his first career Gold Glove as well as an All-Star appearance without the added drama of a final fan vote, whose power and on-base abilities provided the cork in so many roster leaks, was released from the hospital and resting at home.
Belt will be back from his appendectomy and in the lineup in three weeks, if the Giants are fortunate.
— Brandon Belt (@bbelt9) June 2, 2018
Head athletic trainer Dave Groeschner listened to Belt describe his stomachache Friday night and hoped against his intuition. He saw this with Joaquin Arias in 2013 and Andrés Torres in 2010. Groeschner was not wrong, and Belt got fixed up before anything burst.
The Giants might be doing the same with their season.
Just as Chris Stratton rediscovered his curveball Friday night, rookie left-hander Andrew Suárez regained his command and composure while putting forth his finest night as a big leaguer. Suárez held the Phillies to three hits without issuing a walk over seven innings, Joe Panik set the table while scoring both runs and Andrew McCutchen played something beefier than a supporting role as the Giants took a 2-0 victory Saturday night at AT&T Park.
The Giants have thrown consecutive shutouts for the first time since they opened the season with twinned 1-0 victories at Dodger Stadium, both borne on the wings of Panik home runs.
It’s been a while since they clinched a series on the strength of their rotation, and the timing could not have been better or more encouraging.
From the day Madison Bumgarner fractured his hand in Scottsdale, Arizona, the everyday hitters have vocalized the importance of stepping up. If the waters were going to be choppier for this rotation, the lineup would just have to paddle harder and in unison to course through the current.
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Now the Giants will be missing their most valuable offensive player for the better part of June. And while this group might not be built in the precise image of those title teams, which shared the common attribute of a strong and seasoned rotation, they must be able to rely on their starting staff to inspire its share of series victories.
Even when Bumgarner makes his anticipated return on Tuesday, he will only start 20 percent of the time. This is a rotation that simply must offer more than what it had entering this series: third worst ERA in the NL, last in strikeouts as well as K/BB ratio, the third highest opponent’s OPS, third worst WHIP.
Young pitchers like Stratton and Suárez figured to benefit from the halo effect of Bumgarner’s return. Starting pitchers always talk up the importance of internal competition, of carrying over the momentum from a strong start.
Stratton and Suárez didn’t wait for Bumgarner to generate that momentum. They started up the hill and gathered it for themselves.
Suárez was winless with an 8.05 ERA over his previous four starts, and the Giants could have used last Thursday’s day off to skip his turn or send him to a relief role. They sent Ty Blach, their opening-day starter, to the ‘pen instead.
Giants manager Bruce Bochy saw the stuff in Suárez, if not the consistency.
“He pounded the strike zone, and they were all quality strikes,” Giants manager Bruce Bochy said of Suárez after the game. “He had life on the fastball. No walks. Pitched very effectively. That’s nice to see, because he’s got the stuff. He’s got the velocity. He stayed at 93 (mph) the whole night. You could see the confidence in him. He just did a great job.”
Suárez found a release point on his slider he could trust again, but it was his curveball that the Phillies kept swinging through. So catcher Nick Hundley kept calling it.
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“Whatever he calls,” said Suárez, “I’m not going to shake him off.”
Suárez’s best sequence came in the fifth, after a pair of singles followed by a fielder’s choice put runners at the corners with one out. He faced Phillies No. 8 hitter Jorge Alfaro, who tripled off him in his first at-bat, in a situation when some managers might order an intentional walk to get to the pitcher’s spot. Bochy let Suárez work out of his own jam rather than take away the pitcher’s margin for error by loading the bases. Suárez threw fastball-slider-curve. Two fouls and a blocked third strike from Hundley, and the rookie left-hander had found his own path through the inning.
Stratton and Suárez subdued a Phillies lineup that might be fatigued and is not at full strength following Rhys Hoskins’ fractured jaw at Dodger Stadium earlier in the week, but nonetheless scored 32 runs in a four-game sweep over the Giants in Philadelphia less than four weeks ago.
“Shows you the way baseball is,” McCutchen said. “You can’t predict it.”
Giants batters also struck out a franchise-record 55 times in those four losses at Citizens Bank Park, and right-hander Vince Velasquez once again brought every funhouse-mirror curve and swerve to his hard offerings Saturday night.
But McCutchen drove in both runs when he found a way to avoid the strikeout and put two-strike pitches into play.
He chopped one to short and Panik combined a perfect read with a leg-dragging slide, getting around the tag long enough to score a run that survived a lengthy replay review in the sixth inning.
Panik read the eyes of the catcher, Alfaro, and knew he had two choices: take the far outside lane and drag the left leg, or go headfirst. It was his second game back after missing a month because of a torn thumb ligament.
“Headfirst … that’s not what I’m doing,” he said.
Panik made another alert read when he scored a run on McCutchen’s shallow sacrifice fly to center in the eighth.
McCutchen was in the run-saving business, too. He raced back in the third inning to catch Cesar Hernández’s deep drive, which stuck fast in the heel of his glove as he peeled off his sprint near the right field wall. The catch ended the inning and stranded a runner at third base, and McCutchen ran in a wide arc as he flashed a look that was part surprise, part self-satisfaction.
“That’s the mindset,” McCutchen said. “The only way you catch a ball is to make up your mind. That’s what you’re going to do.”
Mental toughness is always a good thing. Stubbornness can work to your detriment. The Giants do not have to worry about the latter with Hunter Pence, who returned to the active roster prior to the game and embraced his new reserve role with his usual wattage.
“Sometimes you have to put on a different hat,” Pence said. “For now, this is my role. I’m going to charge in with everything I’ve got. I’m going to enjoy every bit of it.”
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Back in 2010, the player on the Giants roster who charged hardest was Torres, the 32-year-old who spent his offseasons shirtless and in cutoff jorts hurling concrete slabs and bus tires up hillsides in Puerto Rico.
Torres awoke in the predawn hours on Sept. 12 of that season, with the Giants getting serious in their push for the NL West title, writhing in pain in his San Diego hotel room. He had his appendix out that day. Amazingly, he was back in the lineup 12 days later.
As it so happened, Torres was at the ballpark prior to Saturday’s game, chattering and shaking hands, posing for pictures with fans, constantly head nodding and smiling and re-shaking hands as he wore a World Series ring in a chain around his neck. He saw Groeschner, raced to embrace him, and reminded him of that night when he woke up in agony.
“Remember, I called you,” Torres said. “Remember? Oh, so much pain.”
Living proof: a baseball life can begin at 31. pic.twitter.com/w3DmpXDv7B
— Andrew Baggarly (@extrabaggs) June 3, 2018
His eyes smiled through mirrored sunglasses.
“I got back, remember? It was OK,” he said. “We were OK.”
— Reported from San Francisco
(Top photo: Thearon W. Henderson/Getty Images)