Reggie Crawford could be in SF Giants’ bullpen by end of this season

SAN FRANCISCO — Once viewed as a two-way project hampered by his lack of health, Reggie Crawford is all of a sudden one step away from the major leagues.

Crawford, 22, was promoted to Triple-A Sacramento this week and, according to Farhan Zaidi, the Giants’ 2022 first-round draft pick could be pitching out of the big-league bullpen by the end of the season.

Standing 6-foot-4 and 235 pounds, Crawford throws a fastball that reaches the upper 90s from the left side that overpowered Double-A hitters to the tune of 19 strikeouts in 9⅔ innings. Making his first appearance for Sacramento on Wednesday, Crawford walked a batter and hit another but otherwise recorded a scoreless inning on 12 pitches.

“Not to trivialize the competition, but he can just throw his fastball by guys in Double-A,” Zaidi said of the decision to promote Crawford to the highest level of the minor leagues despite only 28⅔ professional innings. “It didn’t seem to be the best learning environment for him to throw his best offspeed pitches and learn some of the nuances of pitching that we wanted to see if he just reared back and threw 99 past them. Triple-A will be more of a test for him.”

The Giants drafted Crawford 30th overall out of UConn in 2022 and initially planned to develop the muscular left-hander as a two-way player. But with his career slowed by injuries — recovering from Tommy John surgery when he was drafted, a bout of mononucleosis at the tailend of that rehab and a lat strain this spring after being invited to his first major-league spring training — Crawford abandoned that path to focus on pitching and accelerate his path to the major leagues.

Once he refines his selection of secondary pitches, the Giants believe Crawford has the chops to be a starting pitcher. But as they try to balance the workload on his developing arm and the potential impact he could have on the big-league team, the plan is to continue to work him in shorter bursts — two innings at a time, separated by four days of rest, initially.

In 21 career appearances, Crawford has never pitched more than two innings at a time.

“He’s only got so many innings this year, realistically,” Zaidi said. “Even though long-term we still think of him with starter potential I think it’s possible he pitches for us here this year at the big league level. For him to be able to do that, we need him to be able to come back and forget about a back-to-back, even just one day rest, he’s never done those things. Rather than stretch him out, I think our schedule and our plan is more to get him pitching in more typical intervals for a reliever and see if he can handle that.”