SAN FRANCISCO -- A huge crowd gathered on the back field at Scottsdale Stadium on March 19. Giants players, coaches and executives crept close to the cage and pulled up chairs on the patio a few feet from the edge of the field. Gabe Kapler stood behind the mound, flanked by three members of his staff.
The audience was there for Carlos Rodon, who made his first appearance in orange and black that day, facing a few regulars in two simulated innings. The performance was jaw-dropping. Rodon, primarily throwing his elite fastball, allowed just one ball to even be put in play that day, a soft grounder by Darin Ruf.
The Giants came away from that tuneup session feeling very, very good about the two-year deal they had given Rodon a few days earlier. On Saturday, their fan base got a first look at a pitcher who could compete for the Cy Young Award this season if he stays healthy.
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Rodon's debut ended with a 2-1 loss to the Miami Marlins, but his own performance couldn't have been much better. He struck out 12 in five innings, showing the kind of consistent velocity the Giants have just about never seen from one of their starting pitchers.
"Carlos was just electric," Kapler said. "It was kind of inspiring in the dugout with all of the energy and enthusiasm he had delivering each pitch and how fired up he was when he made that play to his right down the third-base line, how athletic he looked, how he maintained his stuff all the way through the outing, how in his last inning of work he started to lose command but was able to kind of dig deep and collect himself and finish on a high note.
"It was as good a Giants debut as any of us could have hoped for."
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Rodon's 89th and final pitch was a 98.1 mph fastball. His first pitch of the day came in at 97 mph. It was a performance that is just about unprecedented in the recent history of a franchise known for having strong pitching.
The Giants have started to introduce more velocity onto their roster in recent years, especially in the bullpen, and their minor league system is full of starters who top out in the upper 90s and relievers who can touch triple-digits. But at the big league level, there have not been a lot of notably hard-throwers over the years.
Per Baseball Savant's database, the Giants have had just 24 pitchers touch 98 mph in the last 15 seasons, and only six of them were starters. None of those starting pitchers threw left-handed, putting Rodon in a class of his own.
With his third pitch as a Giant -- a 98.1 mph fastball to strike out Jorge Soler -- Rodon joined Josh Osich, Jake McGee and Erik Threets as the only Giants lefties who have hit 98 mph in the last 15 years. McGee and Threets each got there once, while Osich did it 17 times in his four seasons in San Francisco.
It's appropriate that Rodon replaced Kevin Gausman in the rotation, because Gausman is one of just two Giants starters in the last 15 years who have hit 98 mph more than three times. The other, of course, is Tim Lincecum. Rodon joined Gausman and Lincecum by hitting 98 on four of his first nine pitches Saturday.
Gausman did it 14 times in two years with the Giants, maxing out at 99.3 mph. Lincecum did it 23 times, with his hardest offering coming in 2008 when he threw a 99.3 mph fastball to San Diego's Khalil Greene. Rodon will have plenty of time to pass those two in volume, but on Saturday he put himself well in front of the pack when it comes to Giants' left-handed starters.
The Giants don't have a lefty in the pitch-tracking era who has hit 97 mph as a starter. Rodon averaged 97.4 mph with his 47 four-seamers.
"I think it's fairly normal. I was a little amped up today, but this was very similar to last (April)," Rodon said. "I was a little more crisp this year compared to last year in the first one, so I'm happy about that."
Rodon was quiet after the game, noting that the most notable thing was that the Giants lost. He regretted issuing two walks in the fifth, saying that they probably kept him from going back out for another inning. The Marlins ended up scoring the winning run off the Giants' bullpen.
For as good as Rodon was, Kapler couldn't ride him Saturday. That electric simulated game was just three weeks ago and the Giants had Rodon on a pitch count in his debut. Kapler noted that he wants this version of Rodon the whole year, including in the postseason, so the staff will need to monitor his workload.
On Saturday, that meant he went into the game with a limit of about 90 pitches. He made the most of them, though, showing that the Giants have a left-handed co-ace behind Logan Webb.
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Of those 89 pitches Rodon threw, 24 were swung at and missed. The final one got him to a dozen strikeouts and made him the 10th pitcher in MLB history to strike out that many batters without throwing more than five innings.
"His stuff is electric, obviously," catcher Joey Bart said. "I think everyone saw that. It's a good one to start on, and a lot to build on moving forward."
