SF Giants make puzzling demotion to try bizarre experiment in right field

The SF Giants made a puzzling roster move on Tuesday as they demoted starting pitcher Carson Whisenhunt to Triple-A while recalling Tyler Fitzgerald and putting him in the lineup in right field tonight. The move does not make much sense at all.

Whisenhunt struggled in his last outing against the Washington Nationals and his overall numbers in his first three big league starts were not all that pretty. He has a 5.02 ERA in 14 and 1/3 innings pitched and gave up five home runs in that short span. However, they still could use the young arm in their rotation right now.

SF Giants make puzzling roster move by demotion Carson Whisenhunt

Maybe with Landen Roupp coming back from injury soon the Giants feel comfortable with their rotation. They have already announced Kai-Wei Teng will start on Wednesday after he had a strong outing his last time out. Still, it would make more sense to give Whisenhunt an extended look in a season that feels more and more like a lost season by the day given he is the top pitching prospect in the organization.

The decision to call up Fitzgerald is even more baffling. Fitzgerald struggled with the Giants this season after having a breakout year in 2024. In 63 games with the Giants this season, Fitzgerald has slashed .227/.287/.333 with three home runs and 13 RBI.

It is not as if he was setting the world on fire in Triple-A, either. Since the start of August, Fitzgerald has seen his batting average drop from .293 to .260.

Placing him in right field is even weirder. Fitzgerald has typically been thought of as a middle infielder. He played a lot of shortstop last year and mostly played second base this year where he looked good. He has two appearances in right field with the River Cats this season, so throwing him out into right field at Oracle Park, one of the most difficult right fields in all of baseball, seems foolhardy at best and like malpractice at worst.

To be fair, Fitzgerald is a good athlete with great speed so he could definitely acquit himself well as an outfielder, but it still seems like a risky experiment. Maybe they are trying to see if he could be some sort of super-utility man for them going forward.

This whole thing wreaks of weirdness. Perhaps this team is so desperate at this point that they are just going to try whatever and see if it works. The season already feels lost, so why not? But at the same time, there does not seem to be much sound logic being applied with demoting Whisenhunt and calling up Fitzgerald and sticking him in right. Watch him go 4-4 and make a Bo Jackson catch running up the brick wall in right field just to prove me wrong.

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