Gabe Kapler sensed something was off.
His closer for the night, Tyler Rogers, trotted with his usual deliberate pace from the bullpen to the mound. He wore his usual blinding white cleats. He inherited the baseball and a 6-5 lead and started into his usual bent-at-the-waist, sidewinding delivery.
He was all over creation.
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Curt Casali began warming up Rogers as Buster Posey, who had struck out to end the top half of the ninth, strapped on shinguards. Then Posey tapped in to catch a few more pitches. Kapler surveyed the scene. He watched both his catchers jut and jab as they received throws. Then he found the eyes of pitching coach Andrew Bailey.
“Bales,” Kapler said, “That was not a good warmup for him.”
The rest was over in an instant: walk, walk, walk off.
Rogers couldn’t find the zone to the first two batters, he found too much of it to pinch-hitter Will Smith, and this is neither the team nor the ballpark to expect a reprieve on a flat, 72-mph slider. Smith’s three-run home run flipped on the strobe lights and cued the audible frisson as the Dodgers leaped over dugout rails in the euphoria of their 8-6 comeback victory Tuesday.
Just when you might have allowed your angst about this Giants bullpen to ease, just when you might have allowed yourself to feel a sense of familiarity and confidence in this evolving group of minor-league free agents and waiver-wire finds and statistical outliers, and just 24 hours after you watched the bullpen heroically fire six shutout innings to protect a statement victory in this series opener …
There it is again. Not just the blown save. The moon door. A fall from such heights that you lose consciousness on the way down. A total catastrophe. A reliever must have the disposition to flush failure and a bullpen must have the ability to hang clean sheets. But for the vox populi, when the blown saves involve so many blasting caps, reputations can be difficult to win back. And when they happen so near to the trade deadline, the wails will be accompanied by demands.
If this one felt familiar, it should have. The Giants built their lead Tuesday night on home runs from Alex Dickerson, LaMonte Wade Jr., Thairo Estrada and Mike Yastrzemski. It wasn’t the first time this season that they hit four homers in a loss. They did it in their opening-day calamity in Seattle, too.
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This one cut deeper. A potential three-game lead suddenly became a one-game lead in the NL West. For the Giants to retain first place on their way out of town, the high ground they’ve held since May 31, they will have to win at least one of two against Julio Urias and Walker Buehler as they close out their road season series at Dodger Stadium.
Rogers could not be blamed if he enjoyed the rear view of this place. He has made nine career appearances at Dodger Stadium and given up 12 runs. In every other road ballpark, he has made 33 career appearances and given up just four runs.
The home run to Smith was the first that Rogers had allowed since May 28. Yes, that one also came at Dodger Stadium, the game in which Austin Barnes tied it with a three-run homer in the ninth inning, Mike Tauchman robbed Albert Pujols of a walk-off shot and the Giants prevailed in the 10th.
Are the Dodgers reading a language that everyone else has trouble deciphering? Do they have a submarine submachine in a hidden batting cage somewhere? Is there something about the hitting background here? Or was this merely a small sample and one of those nights when a leveraged reliever just didn’t have it?
Kapler wondered aloud if Rogers’ struggles might have been amplified by a lack of recent use combined with the All-Star break — something that hadn’t been an issue when the right-hander was on a 90-appearance pace in late May. The manager required no prompting on his postgame teleconference to throw his full support behind his contact-dependent submarine artist.
“Let me just say this now that I have the opportunity: I can’t wait to get Tyler Rogers back out on the mound,” Kapler said. “He’s been a warrior for us all year long. He’s been an elite reliever in this league and has thrown some of our biggest innings. Everybody has a hiccup.
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“Obviously it’s a disappointing loss, but I could not have more faith in Tyler Rogers and I can’t wait to get him back out there so we can turn the page and put this one behind him.”
This one was more hernia than hiccup. John Brebbia also struggled while allowing two runs in the sixth as the Dodgers erased most of the Giants’ 6-2 lead. Still, the last three innings set up well for Kapler. Jarlín García is on a dominant run and he handled the seventh inning without issue. Jake McGee pitched on a second consecutive day and showed no degradation of stuff, hitting 96 mph while retiring both his lefty matchups in a scoreless eighth. The Dodgers didn’t have Max Muncy or Justin Turner in the ninth; both players exited with contusions after a fatigued Alex Wood let a couple of pitches slip out of his hand.
Rogers had been 10 for 14 in save chances this season, but it was an easy decision to order McGee in the eighth and Rogers in the ninth. With Chris Taylor leading off and Smith on the bench, the Dodgers’ remaining threats were all from the right side.
Taylor already had stuffed two homers and a double in the box score when he faced Rogers and drew a four-pitch walk. Two more balls to Matt Beaty resulted in a mound visit and a visible plea from Posey to throw strikes. But Rogers wasn’t able to correct course.
“It’s basically, ‘Hey, we’re one pitch from a double play here and let’s try for that,'” Rogers said. “And everyone kind of put their arm around me, saying, ‘Hey, we got you here. We’re back here for you. Just trust yourself.’
“I’ll chalk tonight up as an outlier because I have to. Because I’m a baseball player and we’re playing tomorrow.”
It’s true. It was the first time Rogers had allowed a home run in a loss all season. He is having an All-Star season, and while his twin brother, Taylor, is hardly an objective source, he wasn’t wrong when he complained about the snub.
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The three-batter appearance Tuesday night really was an outlier, except for the fact that it came in this specific ballpark.
The Giants will need to be resilient in the second half if they are to achieve more than a one-game, wild-card playoff. For some players including Posey and McGee, there will be a physical and mental test as they ramp up their workloads and push to the finish line. Nobody will be able to pace themselves to an NL West title this season, and especially not the Giants, given what remains on their schedule.
But for someone like Rogers, beating a well-worn path to the mound might do him some good. In 12 appearances with no rest this season, he has thrown 11 2/3 scoreless innings and held batters to a .128 slugging percentage. In nine appearances on three-plus days of rest, opponents have a .393 slugging percentage.
If the Giants were to acquire a bona fide closer on the trade market, of course, then Rogers could be freed up to be used with even more surgical precision at any point in a game. Perhaps nobody expected to be at this stage of achievement where they would be tempted to sacrifice prospects for rentals. But if you’re going to trade farm system gold for temporary tattoos, there are few difference-makers as documented as a game-shortening relief ace. Craig Kimbrel or Raisel Iglesias might not come cheap, but there’s little doubt they would deepen the bullpen in a significant way as the rest of the relievers shuffle back an inning. And if we’ve learned anything from watching this team and front office all season, depth is their love language.
In the meantime, resilience will have to suffice. Sometimes in canned form.
Rogers made no excuses for his performance, said he felt dialed in as he warmed up and was asked if he would be eager to take the ball again on Wednesday.
“Yeah, very eager,” he said. “I’m gonna have a Bud Light and rinse this one off and I’ll be ready to go tomorrow.”
(Photo: Brian Rothmuller / Icon Sportswire via Getty Images)
