Bob Melvin's SF Giants co-closer experiment hits first bump in the road

The SF Giants are rolling right now to start the 2025 campaign. A big part of their success has been the strength of their bullpen. However, manager Bob Melvin may have to rethink his 9th inning co-closer experiment.

So far, Melvin has used both Ryan Walker and Camilo Doval in save situations to begin the year. Part of this has been because Walker was not available in some games like in Cincinnati when he was dealing with back tightness. Melvin said that Walker was not available in Sunday’s game against the Seattle Mariners which seemed to be more because Walker had pitched the previous two games rather than any sort of injury.

Melvin may have to reassess co-closer arrangement for SF Giants

That is why Doval got the ball in a one-run game in the 9th. He blew the save but thankfully only gave up the one run which allowed the Giants to end the game in the 9th by getting one run across the plate for their second walk-off win in three games.

Sunday’s outing was the worst Doval has looked so far this season. He gave up two hits and issued two walks, the first two free passes he had given up this season. He did well to escape from the 9th only surrendering one run, but the outing was a bit too reminiscent of the wild Doval we became accustomed to last season. 

In 2024 Doval had a career-worst 4.88 ERA in 59 innings pitched. He converted 23 of his 28 save opportunities, but he lost the closer role to Walker in large part due to his inability to consistently find the strike zone. He walked 39 batters in those 59 innings which is just not sustainable.

In spring training this year he did a better job of throwing strikes and that carried over to his first few outings of the regular season. He was looking more like the Doval from 2022 and 2023 who was one of the more elite closers in the game and earned an All-Star nod.

The prospect of having a sort of co-closer situation with both Doval and Walker, who has been drawing praise from opponents this season, as options to close out games became a distinct possibility, but perhaps we should punch the brakes on that dream for a second.

This is just one bad outing for Doval that, ultimately, did not cost the team the game. However, he really needs to prove that his control has improved since last year before Melvin can truly trust him to close out tight games. Doval has already recorded two saves this season but both of those came with a more comfortable 3-run 9th inning lead. 

Maybe Melvin can employ a somewhat unorthodox co-closer arrangement where Walker comes in if the team has a one or two run lead in the 9th inning while Doval comes in if the lead is three or four. This way, Melvin is still preserving Walker’s arm after he used the hard-throwing righty for 80 innings of work in 2024. Managing the workload of bullpen arms is important and this sort of system could ensure no one gets too burned out, especially early on in the season. Of course, this may be difficult to execute if the Giants have multiple one-run games in a row, but it could be an interesting thing to try.

The fact that the Giants have two legitimate closer options is a plus, but we will have to see how Melvin utilizes his late-inning arms as the season goes on.