ANAHEIM, CALIF. — As Wednesday’s trade line approaches, the relief market heated up Saturday, with Kansas City Royals left-hander Jake Diekman traded to the Oakland Athletics and Miami Marlins right-hander Sergio Romo traded to the Minnesota Twins.
The Orioles have a tradable reliever on their hands, too, but he found himself in a different kind of hot stove Saturday night. Right-hander Mychal Givens clung on for an 8-7 victory over the Los Angeles Angels, striking out Mike Trout and getting Justin Upton to pop out around an intentional walk to leave the bases loaded.
Manager Brandon Hyde asked Givens to get the final four outs, and although he did so, Saturday marked a second straight outing in which he was scored upon after he allowed only one run over his previous eight appearances. Both Hyde and Givens dismissed that the impending deadline and swirling rumors have had any impact on the reliever.
“I don’t think it’s a distraction for him,” Hyde said. “I think he’s given it everything he’s got, and he cares. He wanted to go back out two nights ago for another inning and I wouldn’t let him. I knew he wanted to be in a big situation again, and he got in one and got out of it, so good for him.”
Said Givens: “I’m still wearing orange and black, so that’s all I’m worried about. I’m sticking with the guys I’m with right now. Trades have nothing to do with me. That’s the front office.”
Even if the trade possibilities don’t impact performance, the opposite is certainly true. Including the past two outings, he has a 2.19 ERA over his past 10 appearances. That’s an improvement on the 4.35 mark Givens holds for the season, though his strikeout numbers have been excellent with 57 in 41 1/3 innings.
He got one of his biggest Saturday, striking out Trout with runners on the corners in a one-run game in the ninth after a walk, defensive miscue and run-scoring single. Trout is 0-for-7 against Givens with four strikeouts.
“Mike [Givens] has elite stuff,” Hyde said. “Mike falls into trouble when he walks guys or gets behind on guys, [but he] went after Mike Trout. Mike Trout’s an aggressive hitter and [Givens] got ahead of him and put him away, so huge at-bat, huge job by Mike getting him out.”
Hyde had left-hander Paul Fry warming to face Shohei Ohtani, but with first base open after David Fletcher stole second on the strikeout, the Orioles issued only their fifth intentional walk of the season to load the bases. Givens fell behind 2-0 on Upton before getting the popout in a full count.
“I’ve been in those situations,” Givens said. “It’s just, take a deep breath and just make a pitch and trust the defense behind you and basically attack him like I was doing and trust myself in getting him out.”
Hyde doesn’t have any other relievers at his disposal with Givens’ experience. For that reason, he’s regularly stretched his best reliever into pitching more than one inning. It often hasn’t worked.
In outings confined to one inning, Givens has a 2.81 ERA. When he sits down between frames and pitches across multiple innings, he has a 5.33 ERA. He’s allowed at least a run in nine of 17 such appearances, including Saturday’s busy outing and Thursday when he gave up a game-tying home run in the ninth.
“Mike’s going to be a high-leverage guy for us because of numbers that we have,” Hyde said. “We’re going with what we have. I’m going to try to put our best guys out there in the big spots. We roll the dice with it. Sometimes it works out, sometimes it doesn’t. Tonight, it did.”
If Saturday is any sign, Hyde might soon have to find himself another pair of dice.