San Francisco Giants plan to use versatile righty in relief role

The San Francisco Giants went into the season with a somewhat fluid rotation, having added Ross Stripling and Sean Manaea to a staff that already included Logan Webb, Anthony DeSclafani, Alex Cobb and Alex Wood. That left some question about how skipper Gabe Kapler would divvy up the team's starts, something which has begun to clarify a few weeks into the season.

In an appearance on KNBR radio yesterday, president of baseball operations Farhan Zaidi said the Giants would primarily use Stripling out of the bullpen for the time being (link via Evan Webeck of the San Jose Mercury News). The executive indicated that Stripling could take an occasional start as needed to keep other pitchers rested, essentially functioning in a swing capacity.

Veteran righty Stripling is plenty familiar with that kind of role. Indeed, he has 105 starts and 102 relief appearances to his name at the big league level. He has worked at least partially in relief during each season of his career.

Stripling logged a career-high workload with the Toronto Blue Jays last season, tossing 134 1/3 innings over 32 outings. He had worked in a swing role through the end of May before assuming a full-time rotation job with Toronto. Stripling posted an excellent 3.01 ERA while keeping his walks to just a 3.7 percent clip during that season.

San Francisco added Stripling and Manaea on matching contracts over the offseason — two years and $25M with an opt-out after the first year. Manaea came out of the bullpen for his first appearance on April 3, but has started his last two outings (including Friday's extra-inning loss to the Tigers). Stripling, conversely, started on April 2 and was called upon in relief for his next two appearances. It seems that arrangement will continue, at least assuming everyone’s healthy.

Stripling is off to a tough start to his Giants tenure, having been tagged for ten runs in as many innings while serving up a staggering six long balls. While his velocity and swing-and-miss rates remain in line with last season’s respective marks, the volume of hard contact against him in the early going has been untenable.

Stripling figures to get a consistent rotation run at some point again this season, since virtually no club makes it through a full campaign without encountering starting pitching injuries. Still, it’s not the start to the marriage that either the Giants or Stripling had envisioned — particularly since the inclusion of the opt-out clause in his deal gave Stripling a path to retesting free agency.

Manaea’s early results have also been a little rocky. The southpaw has surrendered six runs in 11 1/3 frames, albeit with a solid 13:4 strikeout-to-walk ratio. Manaea has come out with an early-season velocity spike, at least, offering cause for optimism that he might be able to improve his performance over the coming weeks.

Manaea entered play Friday averaging 94.5 MPH on his sinker. That’s more than three ticks above last year’s 91.2 MPH average heater. Manaea topped the 97 MPH mark for the first time in his career during his relief outing, per Brooks Baseball. His velocity predictably wasn’t quite that high during his first start of the campaign, but that 94.2 MPH average fastball he demonstrated was higher than in any of his outings last season.