CLEVELAND — It was as if Carlos Rodón looked at his 12 strikeouts over five innings in his Giants debut and asked himself, How can I beat that?
Rodón took a decidedly different tact Friday against the Guardians in his second outing of the season but was equally as effective, even if it was all but impossible to be more impressive. Absent the preposterous rate Rodón missed bats in his first start, he replaced it with an even more cold-blooded efficiency (and didn’t stop getting swings and misses, either).
But Rodón, with his upper-90s fastball and wipeout slider, still showed the ability to blow it past hitters when needed, such as in his seventh and final inning, after the Guardians started the inning with runners on the corners. Rodón recorded his eighth and ninth strikeouts of the evening to escape the threat and set himself up to earn his first win with the Giants, who took began a four-city, 11-day road trip with a 4-1 win to spoil the Cleveland’s home opener at Progressive Field.
Each with a home run Friday, Brandon Crawford, Joc Pederson and Joey Bart ensured they wouldn’t let a second straight marvelous start go to waste, after the Giants failed to muster enough offense in Rodón’s first outing of the year.
The Giants got almost all the offense they needed from Crawford in his first at-bat back from a jammed wrist that caused him to miss Thursday’s series finale against the Padres. Riding the gusts blowing out to right-center field, Crawford launched ball after ball beyond the wall during batting practice, then transferred that power to the game for his first home run of season. The ball landed about a dozen rows up in the right field seats, 390 feet away from home plate, and gave the Giants a 1-0 lead.
Joc Pederson padded the lead with a solo shot of his own in the sixth inning, going 410 feet to straightaway center for his second home run in a Giants uniform (and the first off a real pitcher, no offense to Padres right fielder Wil Myers). And Bart provided more insurance with a rocket of a two-run shot to left — his team-leading third of the season, blasted off the bat at 109.1 mph — after Cleveland had pulled within 2-1.
With only 47 pitches through five shutout innings, it looked as though Rodón could defy the loose pitch count he was on and possibly even top the eight innings Logan Webb provided in Thursday’s 4-2 win. However, he needed another 43 to complete the next two innings and gave way to Tyler Rogers and Camilo Doval for the eighth and ninth.
Whereas Rodón needed 89 pitches to complete his five brilliant innings in his Giants debut, he had barely reached half that total by the time he retired the side for the fifth time Friday night. He began to labor in the sixth and seventh but escaped with only one run allowed and finished each of them with punchouts, including one 99.3-mph heater he blew past Steven Kwan, the hottest hitter in the majors, that went down as the fastest pitch he has thrown this season.
His second-fastest pitch came on his 83rd offering of the evening, freezing Amed Rosario with a 99.1-mph heater down and in that stunted the Guardians’ rally in the seventh inning. Jose Ramirez, who walked to lead off the frame, scored Cleveland’s lone run on the next play, on a sacrifice fly from Owen Miller, but Rodón ended the inning by getting Josh Naylor swinging on a slider for ninth and final strikeout.
Rodón’s 21 strikeouts are the most in the majors so far this season and are three more than Juan Marichal recorded his first two starts with the Giants. Only one pitcher in franchise history, Cliff Melton (22; 1937), has struck out more batters in his first two starts.
Rodón produced swings and misses on a modest nine pitches, after doing so 24 times in his first start (the third-most in a game in the post-2008 Statcast era). In fact, when the Giants forced Cleveland starter Zach Plesac from the game with one out in the fifth, after Wilmer Flores doubled, Plesac had missed twice as many bats as Rodón.
It was the few pitches that caught the barrels of Giants bats, however, that made the difference.
After back-to-back masterpieces by the two starters at the top of their rotation, the Giants send Anthony DeSclafani to the hill Saturday looking to extend their winning streak to four games.
