Birdsong shows promising stuff in MLB debut

SAN FRANCISCO -- Stacey Birdsong was in the middle of coaching a softball camp for kids in Mattoon, Ill., on Tuesday when he got a phone call from his son, Hayden Birdsong, a top pitching prospect for the Giants.

“He called and said, ‘Hey, I don’t know if this is good timing or not,’” Stacey said. “I was like, ‘What’s going on?’ And he said, ‘Well, I’m debuting tomorrow.’ There’s no bad time for debuting. It was pretty cool.”

Stacey and his wife, Paula, quickly drove to Indianapolis to meet up with their daughter, Hayley, and catch a flight to San Francisco on Wednesday morning, arriving in time to watch Hayden’s Major League career take off in the Giants’ 4-3 win over the Cubs at Oracle Park.

Birdsong gave up three runs on six hits over 4 2/3 innings in his MLB debut and departed after surrendering a game-tying solo home run to Seiya Suzuki on his 97th and final pitch of the night, but he was picked up by the Giants’ bats, which slugged three home runs to extend the club’s winning streak to three games and seal a series win for San Francisco.

Michael Conforto and David Villar went back-to-back off Cubs right-hander Hayden Wesneski to power a three-run second inning before Luis Matos joined the party with a go-ahead solo shot off lefty Drew Smyly in the bottom of the fifth.

Birdsong didn’t factor into the decision, but he flashed impressive stuff in his first look with the Giants, topping out at 98.4 mph with his fastball while mixing in his changeup, slider and curveball. Two of his five strikeouts came on his changeup, an offering he only began to get comfortable with after making a grip change during Spring Training.

Catcher Patrick Bailey encouraged Birdsong to trust the pitch early in the game, and the 22-year-old right-hander ended up getting his first career strikeout by freezing Michael Busch with a full-count changeup in the first inning.

“[Bailey] told me at the very beginning of the game, ‘Your changeup is good, let’s throw it,’” said Birdsong, the Giants’ No. 6 prospect. “I said, ‘I’m in. Let’s do it.’ I threw it a lot. It’s what was working. We’ll keep doing that.”

“I think it grades out as his best pitch,” Bailey said. “I think he’s made adjustments to it since spring. It’s going to be one of the better pitches in the game.”

A 2022 sixth-round Draft pick out of Eastern Illinois, Birdsong made only two starts at Triple-A Sacramento before learning that he’d be called up to bolster the Giants’ decimated rotation. The rise admittedly felt a little fast for Birdsong, though the Giants had an acute need in their pitching staff following the injuries to Blake Snell, Kyle Harrison, Keaton Winn, Robbie Ray and Alex Cobb.

Birdsong grew up a Cubs fan and celebrated wildly when the club finally snapped its 108-year championship drought in 2016, though his family was more than happy to shift allegiances on Wednesday.

“God has a sense of humor,” Stacey Birdsong said. “We were always Cubs fans. I was telling my wife, it’s funny. In 2016, we were dancing around the living room, and today I’m rooting for him to get them all out.”

Birdsong opened his start with a 1-2-3 first, but he issued a pair of walks in the second that set up Pete Crow-Armstrong’s two-out RBI single. The Cubs then led off with back-to-back singles in the third, but Birdsong managed to avoid damage by retiring Cody Bellinger, Suzuki and Ian Happ to end the inning.

“Stuff guys have the ability to get out of those types of things,” manager Bob Melvin said. “I thought he used all of his pitches really well, especially that inning when you’ve got two on and nobody out. You’ve got a situation where now you’ve got to bear down a little bit. Really no room for error, and he gets out of it with nobody moving up. That was an impressive inning.”

The Cubs cut the deficit to 3-2 after Crow-Armstrong drew a two-out walk and scored all the way from first on Miguel Amaya’s RBI single to center field in the fourth. Birdsong came within one strike of completing five innings, but he misplaced a fastball to Suzuki that cost him a chance to earn his first win in the big leagues.

Despite the ending, it’s clear Birdsong is only beginning to take flight for the Giants.

“Just proud,” Stacey Birdsong said. “We had a great time watching. Very surreal. It’s funny to think about all the times you do things in the yard and you work hard and you sit here and you watch it. Lots of emotions. There was a lot of excitement. It wasn’t exactly like we would have all liked, but that’s how it works, right? I’m a big believer that if you’re not winning, you’re learning. Today he learned a little bit. It’s been good. It was awesome.”