Pickoff practice makes perfect for Giants

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Giants manager Gabe Kapler made a point in his media session between the two games on Tuesday to talk about what he called “an impressive player development moment” with Tyler Rogers. Rogers led off the bottom of the ninth inning of the continuation with an eight-pitch walk to rookie phenom Elly De La Cruz, who stole second on Rogers’ 1-0 offering. De La Cruz was originally called out on a throw from catcher Patrick Bailey, but a very quick review overturned that call.

De La Cruz’s time on second didn’t last long. Before Rogers threw his next pitch, he looked toward second, looked back to the plate, then spun around and picked off De La Cruz.

“Walking the leadoff batter, somebody who's very fast, in a tie ballgame in the ninth, is not always the best way to start out,” Rogers said. “And then he was called out at second, so then you were all excited you got rid of that base threat, then he was called safe, so now you gotta think about a bunch of different situations. Like, are they gonna bunt? Guy that fast already in scoring position, do you really need to bunt him over? That kind of thing. And then I got the call from the dugout, and we went from there.”

The play caught De La Cruz off-guard, but the Giants certainly knew what they were doing. In fact, it was a move they had practiced.

“I can remember back to moments this Spring Training where a group of coaches and players are standing out at second base, and the pitcher on the mound is practicing inside moves to make it look like he's going to the plate,” Kapler said. “So seeing that all come together and essentially win the game for us, pretty big moment for Tyler, ‘cause he executed it perfectly.”

The call came from coach Mark Hallberg, who controls the running game from the Giants’ bench.

San Francisco pitchers are no stranger to the inside move, but the pickoff at second was the first of Rogers’ career.

What made Hallberg decide this was the right time for Rogers to use it in a game?

“I think it's all of the different factors. Who's on the mound, who the runners are, the score of the game, some of their tendencies that our R&D team flags,” Hallberg said. “So all of those different variables combined to allow that decision to happen.”

Rogers said that he had a “pretty good” inside move when the group practiced at Spring Training. The jury is out, however, on if Rogers’ sidearm delivery affects the difficulty of executing the inside move. Kapler said he thinks it makes it a bit tougher, but Hallberg said he thinks sidearmers have a naturally good inside move. Said Rogers: “I can’t answer that question, I don’t know. Maybe, maybe not.”