This is how I’d like to remember Matt “Tugboat” Wilkinson.
Toot-tootin’ off the mound after inducing an inning-ending double play to close out 6 scoreless, blaring that horn like he just navigated an oil tanker through the Strait of Messina.
While the brief for tugboats is to guide larger ships in and out of harbors, our boy Tugboat didn’t find himself in many tight spaces in game 1 of Saturday’s doubleheader against Arizona.
Stylistically the southpaw, with an “old-school” mix of low velocity and dense offerings, isn’t afraid of contact. He struck out just four but held D-Back bats to just three singles, keeping them hitless in just one at-bat with a runner in scoring position. At one point, he retired 12 in a row from the 2nd through the 5th in just his third Major League appearance, and first in front of a San Francisco crowd.
View LinkThe problem for Tugboat was that he wasn’t the only tugboat putzing around the harbor.
If Wilkinson, at 23 years old, is Baby Tug, Merrill Kelly is Papa Tug. A 37 year old bucket of rust that has been pushing opposing line-ups around since before baby Tug could float. Kelly’s been doing this for a long time, he knows how to pitch — or, he knows how to pitch against the Giants. Based on Baseball Savant’s Run Value metric, Kelly is considered one of the worst pitchers in the Majors, but his -22 Run Value has nothing to do with the Giants. In back-to-back outings in May, Kelly held them to 5 runs over 13 IP while recording two wins. Going into Saturday’s start, he was 10-5 with a 3.26 ERA over 23 starts dating back to 2019. He’s thrown at least 6 complete over his last 7 contests (including this afternoon). He hadn’t allowed more than 3 runs to the Giants, or been handed a loss by them, since June 2023.
So no, game 1 against the Diamondbacks wasn’t a dance of jet-skis. This was a contest of adjustments, of light bumps and pushes and prods, of low-90s fastballs, of change-ups, of routine grounders and lugubrious lofts to the outfield. While Wilkinson kept pace through six scoreless, it was only a matter of time before his rival arm inched ahead. Ask a Giants fan, no one does manages batters better than Kelly. He scattered two singles over 7 innings. He walked four, but that’s by design. The veteran right-hander has taken up residency on the edge of the zone. A citizen of the corner. He wants the batter to get impatient, to second-guess, nudging them one way, his way, until they chase or try to do too much with a heavy offering.
View LinkBryce Eldridge’s at-bat in the 1st is a perfect example of this. Three change-ups wilting below the zone had the rookie looking for it before Kelly zipped in a 2-strike four-seam fastball, perfectly located at the knees.
Any rumblings of trouble were promptly subdued by the ground ball. The worry of a lead-off walk to Turner Hill in the 2nd was erased by Drew Cavanaugh rolling into a double-play. Walks in the 5th and 6th were followed by a strikeout and another groundout. The most pressure the Giants offense put on Kelly was in the 4th when Jung Hoo Lee’s one-out single scooted Eldridge over to third. But again, a change-up falling out of the zone fetched a lunging swing from Hill, rolling a grounder to Ildemaro Vargas at second who cut down Eldridge at the plate. Another groundball ended the inning.
As Papa Tug remained steady as the game progressed, Baby Tug started to fret. Maybe the high pitch-count got to him, or the pressure of 0-0 score in the 7th — a frame Wilkinson, who’s three games into his Major League career, had never pitched in before — but the rookie took the hill in that late frame looking like another pitcher than the previous six. Command and composure had evaporated while in the dugout. He threw 9 pitches and 8 of them arrived wide of the zone, generously handing out his first two walks of the game. At 90 pitches and 6+ IP, Wilkinson’s day was done, but his pitching line wasn’t. Ryan Walker came on in relief, and elicited poor contact from Nolan Arenado, but the groundball wasn’t hit hard enough or at anyone to turn a double play. Then, just as abruptly as Wilkinson’s feel for the zone, Walker lost sight of the plate. Another walk loaded the bases — that’s three in total for those counting at home, and each one came around to score when pinch hitter, Lars Nootbarred a 2-2 fastball 432 feet from the plate.
View LinkA well-pitched game dunked into the pond.
Wilkinson just ran out gas while Kelly proceeded to strike out two and retire the side in the 7th.
Arizona would add three more against MLB debuter Seth Lonsway while Jung Hoo Lee celebrated his bobble-head day with an inconsequential (but nice!) RBI single in the 8th.
View Link7-1 final. And since this game was such a blast, let’s play another. See ya in a bit.
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