SAN FRANCISCO -- Bruce Bochy felt he was short in the bullpen on Monday night, so with a four-run deficit in the eighth, he allowed reliever Shaun Anderson to lead off the inning. By the end of a 6-4 loss to the Diamondbacks, the Giants were in need of even more relief help.
Right-hander Trevor Gott was pulled in the seventh with forearm tightness, something no pitcher wants to here. Gott, a valuable contributor out of the bullpen this season, will have diagnostics on his elbow. He will miss at least a few days, Bochy said, but any kind of elbow tightness usually leads to a moderate injured list stint even in the best case scenario. Gott already had one visit to the Injured List this season with a forearm strain.
"We'll see what's going on," Bochy said. "Obviously we hope for the best news. We'll get some tests done and we'll know tomorrow, but he's going to be down for a few days."
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The Giants are hopeful they get good news with a player who has gone under the radar while having a solid season. The hitters -- Alex Dickerson, Mike Yastrzemski, Donovan Solano, etc. -- get all of the attention, but Gott, who turned 27 on Monday, has been a nice find for Farhan Zaidi and the new front office.
Picked up from the Washington Nationals for just cash considerations, the hard-throwing right-hander took the mound Monday with a 4.15 ERA but strong peripherals. Gott had a 3.04 FIP, career-high rate of 9.7 strikeouts per nine, and a career-low WHIP of 1.05.
Gott has relied primarily on a fastball that sits 94-95 mph most nights, and he was there at the beginning of the seventh in a game the Giants trailed by a run. But Gott walked a pair and his velocity ticked downward, leading to first a visit from Curt Young and then one from trainer Anthony Reyes and Bochy.
Just one of Gott's final 10 fastball hit 94 and he had a couple under 93 as his command vanished, but Bochy felt the fact that it wasn't a huge drop is encouraging. The staff was more concerned that Gott was shaking his arm after some pitches.
San Francisco Giants
"He felt it a little bit," Bochy said. "It's not worth the risk."
The Giants already had torn apart most of what was one of the National League's best bullpens. That's left them putting newer pitchers in unfamiliar spots. Anderson entered with a 2-1 count after Gott was removed and gave up a two-run single to Eduardo Escobar, and that pretty much did it on a sloppy night for both teams.
The big killer for the Giants offensively came from another young player. Abiatal Avelino was given a cameo in left field with Mike Yastrzemski nursing a swollen hand, and he got the Giants within a run in the sixth by bouncing a single up the middle.
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But with two on and one out, Avelino ran right through Ron Wotus' stop sign on Brandon Crawford's single to left. He was thrown out at the plate. Instead of having the bases loaded for Alex Dickerson, the Giants were soon out of the inning.
"That hurt, there's no getting around it," Bochy said. "He's young and he's like a wild horse out there. He's playing hard and just didn't see the stop sign."