SF Giants pitcher seems to be fully transitioning from starter to reliever

With the unfortunate news that SF Giants closer Randy Rodríguez has gone on the IL with an elbow issue, the Giants called up pitcher Keaton Winn. While he has been a starter for most of his career, it seems he is now trending towards being a reliever.

For much of his minor league career, Winn was a starter. Even through last season he was primarily a starting pitcher and even made 12 starts with the Giants as he pitched to a dismal 7.16 ERA.

SF Giants pitcher Keaton Winn trending towards being a reliever

With his struggles as a starter as well as his injury history, it probably makes sense to use Winn as a reliever. He has dealt with an elbow injury that he has only been able to come back from recently. He began the year as part of a contingent of young pitchers in Triple-A looking to impress but his injury prevented him from being able to do that.

Even though he has an ERA over 8.00 in the minors this season, Winn was the guy the Giants decided to promote.

He has been surprisingly solid with the Giants this season in an admittedly small sample size. In two appearances, he has not allowed any runs and has allowed one hit and one walk while striking out two batters.

Giants manager Bob Melvin spoke about Winn recently on KNBR and suggested that he will be used as a reliever:

“Keaton Winn's here today. And we saw him in a relief role a couple of times. I think we were pretty intrigued by that.

You know, throws really hard, has a good split, always been trying to work on what 3rd or 4th pitch might be. As a reliever, you can condense your work, you know, your repertoire a little bit. And we really like what we saw.

So we'll use him in a reliever's role when we use him. I'm not really sure right now, but I, you know, he has the stuff to be a really good reliever. He throws hard, he has a really good split.”

Winn has always been a guy with a high-velocity fastball and an impressive splitter. A starter typically needs that third pitch to be effective, so perhaps by putting him in the bullpen and letting him just use the fastball and the splitter that will be the most effective way to use him.

The rest of this season provides a great chance for the Giants to experiment and try things out. Seeing if Winn can be a solid option out of the bullpen is an interesting experiment for the Giants to conduct but it is worthwhile since his time as a starter has not been great.

More from Around the Foghorn: