Pitching with discomfort? SF Giants starter explains why it’s an easy decision
San Francisco Giants' Alex Cobb has dealt with a right hip impingement for months.
SAN FRANCISCO – San Francisco Giants pitcher Alex Cobb has dealt with a right hip impingement for the last three months — and there’s not much question that the injury will be an issue for him until the end of the season.
So the right-hander is simply giving the Giants what he’s got, and on Monday, that meant five solid innings in what became a 5-4, 10-inning win for San Francisco over the Cleveland Guardians at Oracle Park.
Cobb hadn’t pitched at home since Aug. 29 when he no-hit the Cincinnati Reds through 8 2/3 innings. He had his scheduled start Sunday pushed back a day after he recently received a cortisone shot.
Cobb still felt the injury after his second pitch in the first inning and shortly after, needed to be checked on by manager Gabe Kapler and athletic trainer Dave Groeschner. But he remained the game as the Giants went on to their fourth straight win to help keep their playoff hopes intact.
“Alex is about as competitive a person as I’ve seen,” Kapler said. “He just always wants the baseball and is always going to try to give our team an additional inning.
“He wants the big moment and he’s prepared for the big moment and he doesn’t get out-competed. But sometimes his health is going to dictate if he’s able to go five innings like today or nine innings like he did on the near no-hitter. It’s just going to be start-to-start with him.”
“I think that we did a lot going into this start to at least give a shot to fix what was going what’s going on in there,” Cobb said. “Once you go out there and you do it and decide that you’re able to go, there’s a responsibility to kind of be able to eat up innings and give your team a chance to win.”
Kapler added that Cobb’s injury at least dates back to his June 8 start in Colorado.
“So it’s not going to be perfect and we don’t expect it to be,” Kapler said. “But I think there are going to be some starts that are easier for him to get through than others, and I think tonight was a real grind. He did a great job getting us through five innings.”
Assuming he stays on turn and can tolerate the pain, Cobb could make three or potentially four more starts before the end of the regular season. He said he can’t make the injury any worse, so it’s all about pain tolerance and what his body will allow him to do on any given day.
“Other than the small impingement or inflammation that’s going on in there, structurally it looks pretty good,” Cobb said. “So I don’t fear that I’m hurting anything by doing it, so it’s really just being able to tolerate every once in a while getting a zinger in there and pitching on it through a few innings here and there.
“So, things start to fatigue in there a little bit, muscles start tightening up, but really, just knowing that you’re not doing any structural damage (gives me) a huge peace of mind and you can deal with whatever’s going on there.”
Cobb hoped the cortisone shot would alleviate some of the discomfort, but it didn’t do as much as he hoped, and his delivery might suffer as a result.
“So now I just have to kind of reassess and realize that you’re probably going to have to deal with some sort of issues in there throughout the rest of the year,” Cobb said. “Subconsciously, you can definitely ease up and not finish pitches, and really, that’s where the vulnerability happens is out in front of your delivery, trying to be aggressive, trying to finish pitches down in the zone and really finishing off-speed pitches is kind of where you leave yourself vulnerable, where that little zinger can happen.
“So it is something you have to keep conscious of because your subconscious wants to probably ease back a little bit and not have that pain happen. So that actually happened tonight where I realized I was kind of babying it a little bit and then had to step on it a little bit more in the later innings.”
Having not pitched in the playoffs since 2013, when he and the Tampa Bay Rays advanced to the American League Division Series, Cobb is clearly motivated to keep going. He was 25 when he pitched twice in the postseason 10 years ago and isn’t sure how many more opportunities he’ll have to chase a World Series title.
Going into Tuesday, the Giants (74-70) are 1½ games back of the Arizona Diamondbacks for the third and final wild-card spot in the National League.
“It’s just something you don’t take for granted when there’s been that big of a gap,” Cobb said. “Just being in September and having a chance at the postseason is something that I think is taken for granted a little bit, just how challenging it is to do that.
“So I think you saw that the last four nights now, that this team is aware of that and they’re gonna do everything they can to scratch and claw to get that opportunity late in September.”