The Giants knew losing Tyler Rogers would sting, and of course with baseball being the comedic entity of a sport that it is, the reliever made his New York Mets debut against his former team while San Francisco’s own bullpen wounds still were fresh.
In perhaps a perfect microcosm of where both Rogers and his former employers currently stand, the Giants watched their once-dominant bullpen flounder while the submarining right-hander logged a scoreless inning in his first action for the Mets in San Francisco’s 12-6 loss to New York on Saturday at Citi Field.
Spencer Bivens and Tristen Beck got tagged for seven earned runs across three innings of work after the former took the mound with the Giants trailing just 5-4 in the sixth inning. Despite the ups and downs of the 2025 MLB season, the Giants previously attacked these situations from a place of strength, having the luxury of rolling out Randy Rodríguez or Rogers to keep San Francisco within striking distance. Now with a bullpen in limbo, the Giants are dealing with the immediate consequences of reshuffling the deck.
“Yeah, we knew we were going to see it at some point,” Melvin told reporters when asked if it was weird facing Rogers after Saturday’s loss. “I’m sure it was just as uncomfortable for him — or weird, put it that way.”
There always was a long-term component driving the decision to trade one of MLB’s best relievers, and yet the potential of striking gold on a prospect or two in the return haul serves merely as a coping mechanism in the interim as the Giants watched Rogers seamlessly do what he has done for years, delivering in a late-inning situation without so much as breaking a sweat.
Even amid their prolonged slump, there always existed the possibility of the Giants gritting their way into a playoff berth, where San Francisco could enter any prospective series with a moderate level of confidence boasting a three-headed monster at the back of its bullpen.
After all, this organization rattled off three World Series championships in five years following a formula that relied heavily on leveraging the Giants’ arsenal of elite bullpen arms to close out games under the bright October lights.
Those dreams, like Rogers, are long gone with San Francisco’s rotation in shambles and a depleted bullpen left to pick up the slack amid the departures of two of their longest-tenured arms.
With morale already waning from the Giants’ catastrophic July freefall, seeing Rogers take the mound for a competitor for the first time mere days after parting ways is something not even the most seasoned baseball veterans are conditioned to brush aside.
While it certainly had to have been an adjustment for Rogers, the 34-year-old reliever made it a priority to remain positive while balancing his debut for a new team with facing the only MLB organization he’d ever known until earlier this week.
“The adrenaline was there,” Rogers told The San Francisco Chronicle’s Susan Slusser after Saturday’s game. “And then just to look up and see the Giants across in the batter’s box was another level, too. I was just with those guys couple days ago, it was cool. I just told myself to enjoy it. Baseball is funny in that way.”
Rogers has been dynamite this season, boasting a 1.76 ERA and a 0.86 WHIP while ranking second in MLB with 54 appearances. If Saturday’s outing is any indication, he will continue to shine for a first-place Mets team that appears to be on a crash course for a deep playoff run.
Any fantasies Rogers had of taking the mound in October in front of a sellout crowd adorned in orange likely will be a reality — just not the one that Giants fans hoped for.
San Francisco now is left to pick up the pieces while being stuck in a baseball purgatory of sorts, not quite eliminated from postseason contention but playing with a level of enthusiasm that doesn’t exactly inspire visions of San Francisco putting together the kind of run needed to make up ground in the packed National League playoff picture.
But hey, it’s baseball after all. Stranger things have happened.
Download and follow the Giants Talk Podcast
Read the full article here