SF Giants reliever may have just pitched his way off the team with brutal outing

The SF Giants failed to stop the bleeding last night against the Philadelphia Phillies. Not only did they lose, but the bullpen blew yet another game as left-handed reliever Ryan Borucki really made a mess of things in the seventh inning. He is off to a rough start to the season and it is really hard to justify him keeping a spot on the team at this point.

Borucki entered the game in the seventh with the score at 4-2. Starter Adrian Houser had pitched six strong innings but had allowed two Phillies to reach base in the seventh before he was pulled in favor of the lefty Borucki.

It made sense to bring him into the game since Kyle Schwarber and Bryce Harper were due up, two of the toughest left-handed hitters in the game. Borucki promptly walked Schwarber on four pitches to load the bases with no outs and then allowed Bryce Harper to get a hit and tie the game.

Borucki allowed two more runs of his own to score before he was yanked from the game after only recording one out in the inning and exited the game with the Phillies leading 6-4 which ended up being the final tally.

To Borucki's credit, he was honest and open about his rough outing with the media following the game, saying he, "let the team down."

SF Giants should probably move on from Ryan Borucki soon

It was yet another rough outing for the lefty who was acquired by the Giants just before the start of the regular season after he was let go by the Chicago White Sox. Maybe the fact that the White Sox of all teams didn’t want him should have been a big flashing warning sign that he was not going to be phenomenal.

His ERA is now 9.00 on the season as he’s allowed four earned runs on the season in four innings of work. He’s given up two home runs and six hits total while walking two and striking out two.

His numbers against right-handed pitching are pretty terrible and it was made very clear on Monday night that he’s no lefty specialist. So why is he still on the team?

Clearly the front office liked him otherwise they would not have cut bait on Joey Lucchesi, who was quite solid for the Giants last season, and signed Borucki instead. But with Erik Miller and Matt Gage already in the bullpen, it feels a bit unnecessary to have three left-handed pitchers in the bullpen especially when Borucki has been largely ineffective so far. (For those wondering, Lucchesi has allowed two earned runs in 2 and 1/3 innings of work with the Los Angeles Angels so far.)

One does wonder why manager Tony Vitello went with Borucki over Gage in that spot, though. Miller had a rough outing and threw a lot of pitches in Sunday’s loss, the first bullpen collapse of the season, so it makes sense why he was not available. But Gage hadn’t pitched since Friday and has yet to allow a run on the season. He clearly seems like a superior option to Borucki so it is odd that he was passed over.

Yet, none of this is all that surprising. The bullpen was the big glaring weakness of the team heading into the season so it makes complete sense that it is starting to catch up with the Giants after two weeks of the bullpen looking fine.

The bullpen will fluctuate throughout the season, but it’s just really hard to justify keeping Borucki on the roster when the Giants could opt for more electric arms in Triple-A like Gregory Santos or more reliable arms like Spencer Bivens.