Giants thread the needle at Deadline, add OF Canha

SAN FRANCISCO -- The Giants did a mix of buying and selling leading up to Tuesday’s Trade Deadline, though their most notable move was one that didn’t ultimately come to fruition.

Despite generating plenty of trade buzz, Blake Snell ended up staying with the Giants, who are betting the reigning National League Cy Young Award winner will be able to continue his second-half surge and lead a pitching staff that president of baseball operations Farhan Zaidi described as “the best rotation in baseball.”

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“I think trading him would have changed the course of the season,” Zaidi said before a 5-2 loss to the last-place A’s at Oracle Park. “We still believe in what we can accomplish. Leaning into our youth, leaning into our rotation is really the plan.”

By trading designated hitter Jorge Soler to the Braves and veteran right-hander Alex Cobb to the Guardians, the Giants offloaded some salary and cleared paths for two of their top prospects -- shortstop Marco Luciano (No. 3) and right-hander Hayden Birdsong (No. 4) -- to earn regular playing time down the stretch. Luciano, 22, was recalled from Triple-A Sacramento on Tuesday and is expected to split time between DH and the infield, while Birdsong, 22, will step back into the rotation after logging a 2.97 ERA over six starts this year.

TRADE DETAILS
Braves receive: DH/OF Jorge Soler, RHP Luke Jackson
Giants receive: LHP Tyler Matzek, 3B Sabin Ceballos (Braves’ No. 17 prospect)

Guardians receive: RHP Alex Cobb
Giants receive: LHP Jacob Bresnahan, PTBN

Tigers receive: RHP Eric Silva
Giants receive: OF Mark Canha

Still, banking on youth didn’t pay immediate dividends for the Giants (53-56) on Tuesday night. San Francisco’s inexperienced lineup mustered only five hits and didn’t get on the board until Derek Hill delivered an RBI groundout against lefty reliever Scott Alexander in the eighth. Heliot Ramos, the club’s All-Star center fielder, wasn’t even around by the end of the game, as he drew his first career ejection after arguing a called third strike in the seventh.

It wasn’t enough to pick up Robbie Ray, who surrendered four runs on seven hits -- including three homers -- over 4 1/3 innings in his second start since returning from Tommy John surgery.

The Giants, who slipped five games out of the final National League Wild Card spot, didn’t make any significant upgrades to their offense leading up to the Deadline, but they did land a veteran bat in outfielder Mark Canha, who came over from the Tigers in exchange for pitching prospect Eric Silva, the club’s 2021 fourth-round Draft pick.

Canha was batting .231 with a .687 OPS and seven home runs over 93 games for the Tigers this year, but the Giants are hoping a return to the Bay Area may prove reinvigorating for the 35-year-old veteran. A San Jose native, Canha attended Bellarmine College Preparatory and Cal and spent the first seven seasons of his career with Oakland, where he played under Bob Melvin. A pending free agent, Canha can slot into the corner outfield or first base and give the Giants another experienced right-handed hitter to deploy against lefties.

“I think it’s more than just kind of looking at his numbers,” Melvin said. “He’s a pretty tenacious player. He’s the kind of guy that you don’t particularly care for on the other side and you love him when he’s on your team. He’s so excited about coming back to the Bay Area. … Sometimes those things can inspire you a little bit, too.”

The departure of Soler will put more pressure on Luciano and other hitters like Michael Conforto, LaMonte Wade Jr., Mike Yastrzemski, Tyler Fitzgerald and Ramos to power the offense over the final two months of the regular season, though the Giants believe their rotation -- which is now composed of Snell, Birdsong, Logan Webb, Kyle Harrison and Ray -- should be able to keep them competitive moving forward.

“It’s been a long road to get our rotation to the place it’s in now,” Zaidi said. “We feel like we have the best rotation in baseball. When you have starting pitching like that, it can get you on a roll. For us to keep that group together, seeing how we played this past weekend, was really a high priority.”

“I think it’s probably going to fall on us to carry the load a little bit,” Ray said. “We’ve just got to go out and do what we know how to do.”

The Giants entered Tuesday with only a 17.8% chance of making the playoffs, according to FanGraphs, but Zaidi said he believes the club has enough talent to defy the odds and make a postseason run this year.

“One hundred percent, I think we can,” Zaidi said. “We have felt that way since the start of the season. Our roster looks different than it did at the start of the season. We’ve had guys come back, we’ve lost some guys, but 100%, I believe that. I can’t sit here and guarantee it. It’s going to take us getting on a roll, and two weeks from now, we may look at those playoffs odds and they may look very different. They may look the same. At some point here, between now and the end of the season, we’re going to have to have a one-week or two-week stretch where people are really talking about us being as hot as any team out there. That’s what it’s going to take.”