Over the past couple of years, the Giants have built a reputation for rehabilitating pitchers and helping them realize their potential in San Francisco. One of the club's most prominent success stories is Kevin Gausman, who blossomed into the Giants’ most dominant starter in 2020, and accepted a one-year, $18.9 million qualifying offer to remain with San Francisco in '21.

Now in his second season with the Giants, Gausman is viewed as the club’s top starting option and a strong candidate to start on Opening Day against the Mariners on April 1. San Francisco has yet to announce its rotation plans for the beginning of the season, but Gausman and fellow veteran right-hander Johnny Cueto are currently lined up to start the first two games in some order.

“Obviously, it would be a huge honor,” Gausman said after making his second Cactus League start in an 11-8 win over the Rockies on Wednesday in Scottsdale, Ariz. “At the same time, I'll feel honored just taking the ball in any one of the first five games and being one of those top five guys. But yeah, it would be a lot of fun, for sure.”

Gausman threw 48 pitches over 2 1/3 innings at Salt River Fields at Talking Stick, giving up three runs (one earned) on three hits while walking one and striking out three. The right-hander opened his outing with a 1-2-3 first, but Gausman faced trouble in the second, when Charlie Blackmon led off the inning by reaching on a throwing error by shortstop Will Wilson.

A single by C.J. Cron and a walk by Sam Hilliard loaded the bases for Josh Fuentes, who put the Rockies on the board with an RBI single to left field. Gausman struck out Chris Owings on a splitter for the first out, but Giants manager Gabe Kapler then opted to pull Gausman and inserted reliever Sam Wolff to finish off the inning.

Under the new Spring Training rules, Gausman was allowed to re-enter the game in the third, when he worked around a two-out single to Cron to finish the outing with a scoreless inning.

“Obviously, it’s not the traditional way, but I actually think it’s pretty awesome for the starting pitchers,” Gausman said. “The whole thing is to get used to the up-downs and get your three, four [innings].”

Gausman is scheduled to make two more Cactus League outings before the start of the regular season. This will give him time to continue to develop a feel for his best pitch, his splitter, which he said he tries to avoid throwing too much during Spring Training because of the toll it takes on his fingers.

“My split was pretty good today,” Gausman said. “There were a couple I was inconsistent with and just yanking them, but that’s such a feel pitch that more reps is definitely going to help. Overall, I felt pretty good.”

Center of attention

Austin Slater made his second start of the spring in center field on Wednesday and finished 2-for-4 with an RBI double in the fourth. The Giants are a bit thin in center, where Mauricio Dubón is currently the projected starter, so they’ve been trying to get several players looks there to establish more depth ahead of the regular season.

Kapler said he’s been pleased with Slater’s work in the middle of the diamond thus far, though he said the Giants will be careful not to overwork Slater after he dealt with an elbow sprain last year and hamstring tightness at the beginning of camp.

“I thought Slater moved around great,” Kapler said. “Now it's just getting him as many reps out there as possible. I'm confident he can be a quality center fielder, but we do have to be cognizant of and keep his overall health in mind. I think there are some specific demands that come with playing center field every single day, but I think he's got the physical capability to do it.”

Worth noting

• Alex Dickerson went 3-for-5 with two RBIs against the Rockies, including hammering his first home run of the spring off right-hander Chad Smith to straightaway center in the eighth inning.

• Roster hopeful Jason Volser continued to impress with the quality of his at-bats, going 2-for-4 and producing a double that left his bat at 107.6 mph, according to Statcast, in the sixth.

• Non-roster invitee Jason Krizan also enjoyed a productive day at the plate, going 3-for-3 with a go-ahead, two-run shot off of Rockies left-hander Lucas Gilbreath in the sixth.

• Kapler acknowledged that the Giants have work to do to tighten up their defense, which has committed a Major League-high 19 errors this spring.

“It’s just not good enough, frankly,” Kapler said. “We have to do a better job on defense, both to record outs and to protect our pitchers. We just haven’t been good enough.”

Up next

Right-hander Anthony DeSclafani will make his second Cactus League appearance and start as the Giants host the Mariners at Scottsdale Stadium on Thursday night at 7:05 p.m. PT. Right-hander Justin Dunn starts for Seattle.