TORONTO — It was just over a year ago, last June 23, that Keaton Winn made his final start at Single-A San Jose, returning from a two-year absence caused by a pandemic and major elbow surgery. When the Giants won their last World Series, Winn was merely a teenager in Ollie, Iowa: population 200.
On Thursday, the Giants reached the midpoint of their season, and Winn made his first major-league start in front of 27,761 fans, in North America’s most diverse metropolis.
Despite a 2-1 loss to the Blue Jays, dropping their first series since the second weekend of June, the Giants (45-36) completed their first 81 games in better position than they were last season, when they sputtered into the halfway point at 41-41 with their eighth loss in nine games (and only worse to come). And with six strong innings of work from Winn, they may have found a starter who can help their prospects the rest of the way.
Mixing his devastating splitter (52% of his pitches) with a high-90s heater, the 25-year-old right-hander limited a dangerous Toronto lineup to two runs on only three hits and one walk while striking out three. Registering the 25 fastest pitches of the night (topping out at 98.5 mph), Winn blanked the Blue Jays until his penultimate batter.
One mistake pitch to Vladimir Guerrero Jr. turned into the Blue Jays’ only two runs against the rookie righty but proved to be the difference in the game.
Blue Jays right-hander Chris Bassitt set a career-high with 12 strikeouts, including two of J.D. Davis that got him and manager Gabe Kapler ejected in the third inning.
But it took him 104 pitches to complete six innings and was forced to hand off to Toronto’s bullpen, whereas an ultra-efficient Winn needed only 67 pitches (46 strikes, 10 swings and misses) to record the same number of outs. He was one strike away from getting through six scoreless, too, until he gave Guerrero a belt-high splitter over the middle of the plate, which he launched 413 feet, just short of the second deck in left field.
Winn was aided by the defense of none other than Joc Pederson, the Giants’ regular designated hitter making his first start of the season in left field, where he rated as the second-worst defender in the majors last season. One moment, he was sticking his tongue out while making a sliding catch and the next, lumbering the other direction toward the warning track and outstretching his glove to make a running catch.
Drafted out of Iowa Western Community College in the fifth round in 2018, Winn didn’t come with the pedigree of some of the Giants’ other top pitching prospects. He was ranked 13th in their farm system by MLB.com and Baseball America. But he began popping on to teams’ radars last season, when he returned from two missed seasons (2020, due to COVID-19; 2021, due to Tommy John surgery) with extra heat on his fastball and better command of his entire arsenal.
His breakout performance in 2022 was enough to convince the Giants to protect him from the Rule 5 draft this past winter, adding him to the 40-man roster, which set him up to be called up as soon as he proved he was ready this season.
The Giants have had up to six starting pitchers in their bullpen this season, including established veterans Alex Wood, Sean Manaea and Ross Stripling serving in bulk relief roles. That was Winn’s introduction to the big leagues, too, but after three successful relief appearances (12 innings, four earned runs), manager Gabe Kapler decided Thursday was the time to try him out in the rotation.
“Keaton has done a really nice job making this transition from a guy with really good stuff and some strike throwing ability to actually putting it into action,” Kapler said before the game. “I think he’s mentally tough, he’s physically prepared and it’s the right time for him to get this opportunity. … It’s a general time for us to consider the guys that have performed well in these multi-inning bullpen roles as guys who can reach out and grab a rotation spot and make it impossible not to just have them start every time through the rotation. That’s an earned thing.”
Safe to say, Thursday won’t be Winn’s last start in the majors.
The more pertinent question: When might fellow young arms Tristan Beck (who followed Winn with two scoreless innings, lowering his ERA to 3.38) and Kyle Harrison join him in the rotation.
Also …
— Kapler and Davis were both ejected in the third inning arguing balls and strikes with home plate umpire John Tumpane. Davis emphatically flipped his bat out of frustration following a called strike three in his second at-bat, his second strikeout of the game, and held up two fingers (presumably indicating Davis’ frustration over his called third strike in his second at-bat, which was below the knees, and the first strike from his first at-bat, which was off the plate away). Kapler didn’t get many words in before he was tossed, too. It was the first ejection of Davis’ career, the sixth for Kapler (second with the Giants) and the first time any Giants have gotten rung this season.
