ATLANTA — Here, a new number for all the statheads out there: innings pitched per hour of sleep.
In Carson Whisenhunt’s case, the ratio on Wednesday was something like 5:2. Even counting the short nap after his crack-of-dawn flight to make it on time for his spot start, Whisenhunt barely cracked four hours of shuteye.
He didn’t look bleary-eyed in his first major-league start of the season, keeping the Braves off the scoreboard for five innings and finishing with two earned runs over five-plus.
His reward: one full night’s sleep in the posh team hotel before boarding another flight back to rough it in Triple-A. Whisenhunt, the 27th man for the second game of the Giants’ doubleheader against the Braves, was sent back out after the 7-5 win.
But he showed enough to convince manager Tony Vitello he’ll be back.
“He’s got the ability to be at this level,” Vitello said. “It wasn’t just about what he did today. You see the incline of improvement. He’ll have more days like this.”
For now, though, the Giants will continue to roll with Adrian Houser, Landen Roupp and Trevor McDonald behind Logan Webb and Robbie Ray. Tyler Mahle is also on a rehab assignment, though he was shaky in his first outing Tuesday, walking five in three innings.
There should be more opportunities following the Aug. 3 trade deadline.
Ray, on the last year of his contract, is one of the likeliest candidates to be dealt if the Giants maintain their posture as sellers. Mahle, with a few strong starts under his belt, could also give a contender a low-cost option to boost their pitching depth.
The Giants aren’t exactly swimming in major-league arms themselves, but without much hope of making the playoffs, trading from the relative position of weakness would at least give them a chance to see if they can count on any of their internal options heading into next season.
Whisenhunt, as Vitello declared two weeks ago, would be the “next man up.”
“I just meant he’s doing well enough to get the call-up if circumstances come up,” Vitello said before Wednesday’s game. “Circumstances have come up, so here we are.”
Whisenhunt was with Triple-A Sacramento in Oklahoma City when he got word that he was getting the call late in their game Tuesday night. He packed his things and got to bed around 1 or 2 a.m. for a 7 a.m. flight to Atlanta, where he started on short rest about 12 hours later.
His evaluation: “Not the best it could have been, but for what I had to work with, I felt pretty solid.”
It went better than just about any of the five starts Whisenhunt made in his big-league debut last summer, when he struggled with his command and batters punished him for lacking a second offspeed pitch. For the most part, it’s why he has been stuck at Triple-A for three years after rising quickly through the Giants’ system with a major league-ready changeup.
This time around, Whisenhunt still struggled to put away hitters, finishing with only two strikeouts, but settled in to retire 11 of 12 until allowing the first three batters of the sixth to reach. He issued two walks but left them both stranded on first base.
“He put on a clinic for how to handle traffic,” Vitello said. “Because there weren’t very many moments in the game where it was easy, or he just breezed. …
“To come in on a flight and all that stuff, I think it’s pretty commendable how well he pitched on the road against a great team, and then you add in all the circumstances, too.”
Vitello noticed a difference from the pitcher he watched for the first time in spring training.
“I thought [his] composure was at a high level,” Vitello said. “Whereas in spring training … composure got away and he kind of just went harder and madder and faster. There was a lot of poise out there today.”
At Triple-A, he has been working on a slider that he admitted was “still a work in progress,” particularly against right-handed hitters. Still, he said having the breaking ball to go with a fastball that sits 92-94 mph and his signature changeup is “definitely a lot of help.”
He gave a different explanation for what allowed him to earn the Pacific Coast League’s Pitcher of the Month award for May and post a 2.76 ERA in 10 starts since April 28.
“Just trusting my stuff in the zone,” he said. “Not trying to punch everybody out. If it happens, it happens. But just trying to get early contact and go further into the game.”
Now, on his way back to Triple-A, he knows that mindset can translate to The Show.
“It definitely makes it mentally better,” he said.