San Francisco Giants: 13 Pitchers and Four Bench Players...or 12 and Five?

(Photo by Ezra Shaw/Getty Images)

For those of you who haven't heard, the 2009 San Francisco Giants are built on pitching and for the most part, their pitching has been nothing but dominant.

Both the starting rotation and bullpen have been rock-solid all season long, but not without their fare share of weak spots.

One of those weak spots was recently replaced when rookie pitcher Ryan Sadowski took over the fifth spot in the rotation from a struggling Jonathan Sanchez.

The career minor leaguer has won his first two starts and has yet to allow a single run which has endeared him to the San Francisco faithful who already have a nickname for the 26-year-old, "The Big Sadowski."

However, with Sadowski's call up, the Giants have an extra pitcher on the 25-man roster. Instead of moving down to the minors to work on his mechanics as a starter, Sanchez has been moved to the bullpen.

Sadowski's call up was made possible with Rich Aurilia on the bereavement leave but with Sadowski pitching extremely well, and Aurilia back with the club, the Giants sent second-baseman Matt Downs back down to Triple-A.

Therefore with Sadowski becoming the club's 13th pitcher, the Giants are now short a position player with Downs back in the minors.

Currently, the Giants have just four bench players available to pinch hit and spot start when needed. However, staying with just four bench players would severely limit manager Bruce Bochy's options when it comes to pinch hitting late in ball games.

Now there are plenty of Fresno Grizzly (Giants' AAA affiliate) position players deserving of a call up, but the issue is which pitcher on the Giants' roster should be moved down.

Jonathan Sanchez, the former fifth man in the rotation still has an option left to the minor leagues but has thrown extremely well in his first couple of relief appearances since being put in the bullpen.

Sanchez' nasty breaking pitches and plus fastball are a major asset in the bullpen. Add to it the fact that Sanchez is a lefty, the Giants now have two quality left-handed relievers along with Jeremy Affeldt.

Therefore, the most logical scenario is for the Giants to option down reliever Merkin Valdez and call up Kevin Frandsen.

The only issue from keeping this move from being made is that Valdez no longer has a minor league option, meaning that if he were moved down he would have to clear waivers, where all other 29 MLB teams would have a chance to snatch him up.

And clearly, the Giants don't want to make this move because the 27-year-old right-hander throws in the mid-90's and has at times a devastating slider.

However, after Valdez's most recent outing on Sunday against the Houston Astros, the reliever's season ERA has risen to 4.15 and a WHIP of 1.42.

Those numbers would be decent if Valdez were a starter but out of the bullpen those numbers are quite below average.

In the eighth inning of the series finale with Houston, the Giants reliever allowed three earned runs on three hits and a walk.

On the season, Valdez has now thrown 26 innings and given up 22 hits and 15 walks. Not only does Valdez nearly allow a hit per inning, but he averages over a walk per every two innings.

Not a great combination for a relief pitcher.

If Giants GM Brian Sabean and Bruce Bochy didn't drool over a pitcher's "stuff" so often, they would realize that Valdez is expendable.

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