SAN FRANCISCO - The Giants were annoyed by Monday's "rubbing teammates the wrong way" report for a number of reasons, but near the top of the list was the fact that the target, Mark Melancon, has been pitching hurt to try and help a last-place team. That's no longer the case.
Melancon went on the DL on Wednesday morning and later had a PRP (platelet rich plasma) injection in his right arm to try and ease some of the discomfort in his pronator. He is expected to be out the rest of the first half. Melancon would be eligible to return with two games left until the break, but there's no point in rushing him. He missed 12 games the first time this came up and he now has more than two weeks to rest before the second half kicks off.
In the meantime, Sam Dyson is the closer, but he was unavailable Wednesday because of a heavy workload. So Bruce Bochy got creative to close out a 5-3 win over the Rockies. George Kontos came on for a sharp Ty Blach in the seventh and carried the lead to the eighth. Steven Okert got through the 26th out and Hunter Strickland came in to get Ian Desmond to fly out for his first save of the year.
Because Bochy wanted Kontos to face Pat Valaika in the eighth, he got an at-bat 15 hours after Cory Gearrin got to take his hacks. It at first looked like Kontos had "don't swing" orders, but he fouled a ball off.
"The second fastball I got, if it was near the plate, I was going to swing," he said.
Kontos said he doesn't have bragging rights over Gearrin because he fouled a ball off, noting that Gearrin is 1 for 2 in his career and he is 0 for 8. It turns out that they used the same bat, too. Yes, there is a Cory Gearrin model.
Sports
"It's just been hanging out since last year," Gearrin said, looking down at his equipment bag. "Just in case."
--- Dan Slania woke up a 4:30, drove to Philadelphia, and boarded a flight that was went down through Nashville to fuel up. He arrived in San Francisco in time for the second inning. And then he watched, met with old teammates, showered … and prepared to fly all the way back to Pennsylvania.
"I'm going to pass out as soon as I get on the plane," Slania said.
He wasn't complaining at all. The Giants needed a potential innings-eater with Melancon on the DL, and if Slania is sent back down before Friday's game, he'll at least be back near Double-A Richmond and the flight back will have been taken on a chartered jet with a bunch of former teammates. Plus he gets a couple of service days.
"I can tell you it's well worth it," Bochy said.
--- The main story today is about Jae-gyun Hwang, who brought some more life to a team that got its first sweep of the year. The standings are what they are, but the Giants are playing much better, and some players started talking Wednesday about how they're looking forward to being a spoiler for teams like the Rockies and Diamondbacks.
More than anything, the players are just happy that they got to listen to the victory soundtrack again and walk out of this park with smiles.
"We did a really good job of coming into this series and decided what the intent should be," Nick Hundley said. "We weren't going to worry about what's been going on. You control what you can control. It's nice when the results match up."
There was a players-only meeting on Monday and Hundley said "everybody got on the same page again."
Now the tricky part: Keeping it going on the road.
--- Nolan Arenado is a freak and the Giants should give him a blank check, a ton of Facebook stock, and the rights to the Salesforce building when he's a free agent in two and a half seasons.
--- Ryder Jones is hitless in 16 at-bats but he was keeping his head up. He was an inch or two from a double down the line Wednesday and the Giants feel he's having good at-bats. More than anything, he's not taking those results into the field and he talked about that at length when we sat down for a podcast the other day. If you subscribe on iTunes here, you'll have it in the morning.
