{"id":731157,"date":"2026-06-20T19:54:12","date_gmt":"2026-06-20T19:54:12","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/731157\/"},"modified":"2026-06-20T19:54:12","modified_gmt":"2026-06-20T19:54:12","slug":"giants-to-move-adrian-houser-to-bullpen","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/731157\/","title":{"rendered":"Giants To Move Adrian Houser To Bullpen"},"content":{"rendered":"

Struggling right-hander Adrian Houser<\/a> is being moved from the Giants rotation to the bullpen, manager Tony Vitello told the California Post\u2019s Evan Webeck (multiple<\/a> links<\/a>) and other reporters.\u00a0 With Tyler Mahle<\/a> nearing a return from the 15-day injured list, Houser looks to the odd man out of the rotation, as the Giants will instead keep Trevor McDonald<\/a> in a starting role.<\/p>\n

Houser is no stranger to relief pitching, as he worked as a swingman with the Brewers earlier in his career and was moved to the Mets\u2019 bullpen after some other struggles as a starter early in the 2024 season.\u00a0 That said, it\u2019s obviously not a great outcome for either Houser or the Giants just six months after the right-hander inked a two-year, $22MM free agent deal.<\/p>\n

Houser expressed his disappointment over the role change, telling Webeck that \u201cI\u2019m not going to be happy about it, but I understand.\u00a0 I signed here to be a starter.\u00a0 I didn\u2019t sign here to be in the bullpen.\u00a0 So I\u2019m gonna do everything I can to get back in the rotation.\u201d<\/p>\n

Over his 10 Major League seasons, Houser has generally delivered okay numbers as a back-end starter, with a career 4.20 ERA and 50.3% grounder rate over 799 2\/3 innings in the Show.\u00a0 Houser\u2019s ability to keep the ball on the ground has mitigated his lack of strikeouts, though this year, his grounder rate has dropped to 40.5%.\u00a0 The increase in fly balls has been just one of many issues on a troublingly blue Statcast card for Houser, and his 5.73 ERA over 66 innings underlines his lack of results.<\/p>\n

Mahle also posted a 6.04 ERA over 56 2\/3 innings before a hamstring strain sent him to the IL on May 27.\u00a0 Between Mahle and Houser, the Giants haven\u2019t received much return on the $32MM spent on their rotation in free agency this past winter.\u00a0 The lack of production from the rotation has only been part of the problem in an overall rough season for a Giants team that entered today\u2019s action with a 31-44 record.<\/p>\n

With the front office already considering<\/a> selling at the deadline, Mahle is an obvious trade chip as a rental player, assuming that he can regain any of his old form before August 3.\u00a0 That means Mahle will probably get plenty of opportunity to get on track before the deadline, closing one possible door for Houser\u2019s rotation return.\u00a0 As for McDonald, the rookie has a 4.64 ERA over eight starts and 42 2\/3 innings pitched, and the Giants would surely want to see what McDonald can do as the team is beginning to look ahead to 2027.<\/p>\n

If Mahle or Robbie Ray<\/a> are dealt at the deadline, Houser could be moved back into one of the open slots in San Francisco\u2019s rotation.\u00a0 Houser\u2019s own trade value is next to nil at this point given both his lack of success this year, and his remaining salary \u2014 about $3MM left this year, $9.5MM in 2027, and a $4MM buyout of a $12.5MM club option for 2028.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Struggling right-hander Adrian Houser is being moved from the Giants rotation to the bullpen, manager Tony Vitello told…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":731158,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[2290],"tags":[11710,5,48585,91],"class_list":["post-731157","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-baseball","tag-adrian-houser","tag-baseball","tag-trevor-mcdonald","tag-tyler-mahle"],"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/channels.im\/@mlb\/116784192811159146","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/731157","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=731157"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/731157\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/731158"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=731157"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=731157"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=731157"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}