SF Giants snag intriguing reliever off waivers from Royals to boost battered bullpen

The SF Giants have struggled to find any sort of consistency with their bullpen all season and it’s been a clear weak spot on the team. They seem to be trying to address that by bringing in a new arm in the form of right-handed pitcher Eric Cerantola who they scooped up off waivers after the Kansas City Royals DFA’d him.

Cerantola made his big league debut this season and his numbers were not all that pretty. In two outings, he pitched 5 and 1/3 innings and allowed six earned runs for a 10.13 ERA. Those aren’t exactly inspiring numbers especially since he walked 10 batters and San Francisco’s pitching staff has struggled with handing out free passes all season.

Yet, he’s had promising numbers in the minors. In Triple-A this year he had a 2.67 ERA in 27 appearances and 30 and 1/3 innings pitched. He did have 43 strikeouts compared to 16 walks so he definitely has the stuff to punch guys out.

He also pitched for Canada in the World Baseball Classic and performed well with two scoreless outings for his native country.

Giants need to get the bullpen figured out somehow

The Giants won’t put him in the big league roster right away. He will go to Triple-A first but if he shows promise there then it wouldn’t be a shock if he gets called up at some point especially if the Giants decide to trade away some of their relievers ahead of the deadline.

He is on the 40-man roster now though after the Giants waived Gregory Santos. The flamethrower cleared waivers though and was out-righted to Triple-A Sacramento so he is no longer on the 40-man roster.

The rest of this season will be important for the Giants because they will need to sort through their bullpen arms and determine if anyone is worth keeping around for next season. Even some of the team's better relievers like Matt Gage and Keaton Winn are currently on the IL so they are running out of arms.

There obviously should have been more of a bullpen remodeling last offseason since the bullpen performance really took a nosedive last season after the team traded away its best relievers or lost them to injury.

Maybe Cerantola ends up being a solid find and turns into a dependable bullpen arm. At this point the Giants may as well just try guys out to see what they have and then really invest money into the bullpen during the offseason so they can avoid a repeat of this season.

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