OAKLAND – The San Francisco Giants could not have asked for much more from right-hander Jordan Hicks in his final tuneup before the start of the regular season.
Hicks was dominant Monday in his last spring training start, striking out 10 while not allowing a hit in five innings as the Giants beat the Oakland A’s 4-1 at the Coliseum in the first game of the exhibition Bay Bridge Series.
Hicks, making the transition back to being a starting pitcher after spending last season as a reliever for both the St. Louis Cardinals and Toronto Blue Jays, retired 14 straight batters after he walked A’s second baseman Zack Gelof in the first inning.
“I love where I’m at right now,” said Hicks, who threw 72 pitches. “Just trying to savor the progression. Today was the first time getting through five (innings). So, I feel really good about the transition and overall just the repetition with all my pitches.
“I feel like that’s when it comes together.”
With his fastball touching 99 mph in the later innings and a sinker between 94 and 97 mph, Hicks got better as the game went on, striking out seven straight batters from the third to the fifth innings.
“Didn’t start out throwing 99. He kind of eased into it,” Giants manager Bob Melvin said of Hicks. “Had a four-seamer off his two-seamer, which really played like two different pitches. Threw his breaking ball, had some good splits today. He was really good. It’s the best we’ve seen him.”
That splitter that Hicks experimented with this spring was used to finish off four A’s hitters on Monday.
“Just wanting to use it and be more effective with it the zone,” Hicks said. “I want that pitch, with the movement that it has, I want it to be in the zone, or at least look like a strike for as long as it can. Had some good results with it.”
“I thought today was a great showing of it,” Giants catcher Tom Murphy said of the pitch. “We understand that it’s probably his fourth pitch right now, and he understands that as well. But it’s a really, really good action pitch that’s going to get a lot of swing and miss.
“So if we use it in the right counts, I think it’ll be a really effective pitch for him.”
In his last two outings before Monday, Hicks struck out 12 in 7 2/3 innings while holding opponents to a .120 (3 for 25) batting average. In five starts this spring, Hicks struck out 28 in 17.0 innings, and finished with a 2.65 ERA and a WHIP of 1.06.
“I’m really ready. I would say that (more than) excitement,” Hicks said of the start of the season. “This is my seventh big league season, so the preparation is there, the build-up of the offseason is there and then getting this opportunity, it’s been a dream come true.
“So I want to make the most of it and keep on going.”
Hicks is projected to start Saturday when the Giants play the San Diego Padres in the third game of a four-game series at Petco Park. It’ll be his first start since July 12, 2022 when the Cardinals played the Los Angeles Dodgers at Busch Stadium.
“This is the most fun I’ve had playing baseball,” Hicks said.
HOMERS GALORE: Murphy hit his second and third home runs of the spring Monday, both off A’s starter JP Sears. His first homer traveled 375 feet but had an exit velocity of 112 mph, and his second traveled 405 feet with an exit velo of 106 mph.
Wilmer Flores also homered in the fifth inning as the Giants took a 4-0 lead.
MELVIN’S RETURN: Melvin has been back to the Coliseum before as a visiting manager, but he still enjoys returning to the nearly 58-year-old facility where he spent 11 years as the A’s skipper.
“This is a special place for me. I love this place,” said Melvin, who spent some time before Monday’s game, “reminiscing about some of the games here in the past and I think that’ll probably be the case anytime I’m out here on this field.”
His favorite?
“The last game in (2012),” Melvin said of the A’s win over the Texas Rangers that clinched the American League West title. “That’s the one that probably stands out the most, but there were a lot of great games here.”
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The A’s lease at the Coliseum expires after this season and the team has not yet announced where it will play next season. All MLB owners approved the A’s proposed relocation to Las Vegas earlier this year and the club hopes to open its Strip-adjacent ballpark, with a fixed roof, on a nine-acre parcel of land in 2028.
Melvin hopes this won’t be the last season the Giants and A’s have a Bay Bridge Series.
“Honestly my feeling is that they need to play out the string here before they move,” Melvin said. “That’s what I would hope.”