Giants broadcaster 'pissed off' about player's struggles

It’s been a rough Major League Baseball season for San Francisco Giants closer Camilo Doval and broadcaster Mike Krukow has had to watch each and every one of his blown saves.

Things came to a head for the long-time announcer on Sunday when Doval blew a save, his fourth on the season, in what would eventually be a 3-2 Giants win over the Minnesota Twins. Doval gave up two earned runs on two hits, walking one, and striking out one in one-third of an inning, costing the team a 2-0 lead.

Krukow appeared on KNBR 680 on Monday and didn’t hold back his thoughts on how the Giants should handle the situation.

“Where do we go from here? I don’t know. I really don’t know,” Krukow said to hosts Brian Murphy and Markus Boucher. “I don’t know if he’s the guy coming out of the break. Quite honestly, you have to have a more confident arm in that slot. Do you put in Ryan Walker? Do you put anybody else? What has Tyler Rogers done in the high-leverage situation pitching the eighth inning? He’s been great.

“So there are other options there and there is concern. And really if you’re Bob Melvin, you might even consider that this is something that he needs to go down [to the minor league]. Work on a few things. Kind of a head slap, calm down, find out what is really important in certain situations, what you have to do with a two-run lead when you’re facing a guy who really should have no business in that batter’s box against you. There’s a couple of changes that he has to make to be able to get back to where he was and right now he’s not the same guy he was a year ago.”

When the hosts said that Krukow was using some strong words, he didn’t back down from his assessment.

“I’m pissed off,” Krukow responded. “That two-nothing lead and that walk, especially when he had the 1-2 count [Note: The count was 2-1], that’s unforgivable for a closer.

“He’s better than what he’s shown. He’s better than this. He had a little bit of a lazy slider there for a while and he picked it up. These last couple of outings he got that slider. But what I don’t like about it is the arrogance when they’ve asked him to come in there and pitch when the whole bullpen has been gassed and he didn’t want to go and pitch that game. What was it, like a 9-1 game and he gives up three runs or whatever it was. There’s [little] things like that that you cannot have and he needs to rise above that and he needs to mature in his position because they need him to make a run. He is a key and he needs to grow up a little bit.”

Krukow may have been referring to San Francisco’s 13-6 win over the Los Angeles Angels on June 16 when Doval entered the game and promptly allowed four hits, four earned runs, and two walks in 1/3 of an inning. When he was removed from the game, the pitcher threw a water chest in the dugout and shouted an expletive as he left for the clubhouse.

https://twitter.com/NBCSGiants/status/1802475275852435879?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw%7Ctwcamp%5Etweetembed%7Ctwterm%5E1802475275852435879%7Ctwgr%5Ee9078d36c0c62725f8d2b4d0915b08aeb235609a%7Ctwcon%5Es1_&ref_url=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.nbcsportsbayarea.com%2Fmlb%2Fsan-francisco-giants%2Fcamilo-doval-frustration-mike-krukow%2F1745685%2F

For the record, Krukow said at the time he “ loved ” Doval’s antics, saying “I had no problem with that [throwing the cooler], I had no problem with that at all.”

Apparently that latest blown save changed his thinking on the situation.

[ KNBR , NBC Sports Bay Area ]

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