'He’s coming to San Francisco': Giants' All-Star Cobb on Shohei Ohtani
SEATTLE – Baseball season happens fast this time of year. The Futures Game, the draft, Home Run Derby, the All-Star Game. Before you know it, the trade deadline is upon us.
Other than the postseason and the final moments of the pennant races, it tends to be the most exciting time on the baseball calendar, and Tuesday night provided the latest round of pomp and circumstance in the form of the 93rd All-Star Game.
From the first two plays of the game, circus catches by the American League’s corner outfielders, to every time Shohei Ohtani stepped in the box to Craig Kimbrel striking out Jose Ramirez to secure the National League’s 3-2 victory, baseball can still wow ‘em on the national stage.
The trade season is on deck with the Aug. 1 deadline fast approaching, and the San Francisco Giants and Oakland Athletics are on anything but parallel paths – while the Giants plan to be buyers at the deadline, the A’s will be … well, if they were good enough to be sellers, they’d be sellers.
Alex Cobb represented the Giants on Tuesday, along with Camilo Doval – Tuesday’s winning pitcher – and faced Ohtani during a scoreless (but somewhat wild) fourth inning. He said he’s scheduled to start Friday when the Giants open a three-city trip in Pittsburgh.
The Giants will look to acquire a front-line starter to join Cobb and Logan Webb atop the rotation. Plenty of names of potentially available starters have circulated, none bigger than Ohtani, the hitter-pitcher extraordinaire who’ll be a free agent in the offseason.
In a mid-game interview with two reporters, Cobb expanded on the value Ohtani would give the Giants, sayig, “He’d be huge. Whatever you thought (Aaron) Judge would have been as the face of the Giants, he would eclipse that with the whole country.
“You look for people to be the face of your franchise, not only the skill but off the field, what type of people they are. I’ve never been around anybody who wants to win more than Shohei. I want to win as much as anybody, but he would do anything to win. So I’d be thrilled if there was some avenue for us to get him at the deadline and sign him long term during this offseason.”
So if the Giants asked Cobb to campaign for Ohtani to be a Giant? “Oh, I’m already campaigning for him,” Cobb said with a smile.
When Ohtani stepped into the box, fans chanted “come to Seattle,” to which Cobb said in the interview that Seattle is Ichiro Suzuki country.
“He’s coming to San Francisco,” said Cobb, a former teammate of Ohtani with the Angels, putting a dazzling exclamation point on the interview.
Cobb has been around long enough to realize certain moves could catapult a team a long way in the postseason, but he also said the Giants as is are good enough to do damage down the stretch and into the playoffs.
“I truly believe in the roster that we have,” Cobb said during Monday’s All-Star workout, “but I think it's really nice the team is in the position to (acquire players) rather than go and disassemble, I've been on a lot of teams that have had guys in the clubhouse start to get a little anxious, looking at the trade rumors to see if they're going to be in a new uniform in a couple of weeks.
“But I definitely love the position that we're in as an organization to go out and make those moves if Farhan thinks that will get us back to the postseason.”
Cobb made his first career relief appearance Tuesday and had issues with his grip, partly because All-Star baseballs are more tightly wound, he said. He walked Ohtani and threw a pitch to the backstop with Randy Arozarena at the plate, eventually striking him out before retiring Bo Bichette on a flyout and Yandy Diaz on a groundout.
Despite the walk, facing Ohtani superseded all other plate appearances for Cobb, who called him “a showman. He’s made for the spotlight. I ‘ve seen him put a ball in the third deck here as a teammate. I didn’t want to see it from the mound.”
A’s All-Star Brent Rooker is so impressed with Ohtani that his mission this week was to grab an autographed picture. Not just any picture, but a picture of Rooker homering off him. Turns out, he didn’t get it done but hopes it’ll happen.
Rooker still had a splendid moment, ripping a ground-rule double in the sixth off Alexis Diaz amid “sell the team” cheers. Yes, A’s fans were in the house and prominent, and Rooker heard it all.
“I don’t know if it’s a large presence of Oakland fans here or if fans across the league share that sentiment. I did notice that, yeah,” Rooker said. “Continuously throughout the year, no matter what side of the aisle you stand on, Oakland fans have made it very clear how passionate they are about their team and city, and I think that in and of itself, in a vacuum, is pretty special.”
Unlike Cobb and Doval, key components to the Giants’ playoff hopes, Rooker has no idea if he’ll finish the season in Oakland. His story of perseverance in an inspirational journey is admirable, but at 28, he doesn’t exactly fit into the A’s future plans.
Rooker, who was traded by both the Twins and Padres in 2022, said, “Obviously, this scenario would be different. If I got traded this time, I would be going to a buyer where in the past, I went to a seller as a part of one of those deals. That's not really on my radar.”
Doval’s scoreless seventh inning got him the win. He retired three of four batters including the Mariners' Julio Rodriguez, who swung through a 101.2-mph blazer for strike three. Elias Diaz, the game’s MVP, homered in the top of the eighth, the deciding blow.
Like Cobb, Doval was a first-time All-Star and embraced every moment including his time with co-closer and locker neighbor Alexis Diaz of the Reds and Monday stroll down the red carpet when he wore a cowboy hat while accompanied by his wife and young son.
“You know how it is, you’ve got to put your swag on,” said Doval, who became the first Giant to win an All-Star Game since Matt Cain in 2012. In fact, before Tuesday, that was the last year the National League was an All-Star winner.
Source: San Francisco Chronicle
