SF Giants’ key hits open floodgates as 29-year-old earns win in MLB debut
SAN FRANCISCO – About three hours after he entered the game and roughly 30 minutes following the Giants’ 13-6 win over the Los Angeles Angels, Spencer Bivens was still trying to process everything that happened Sunday.
“It doesn’t really feel real. I’m just waiting to wake up from a dream,” Bivens said. “It’s unbelievable. I really don’t have words for it.”
Selected from Triple-A Sacramento earlier in the day, Bivens, after an unbelievable journey, made his MLB debut Sunday afternoon at a sold-out Oracle Park, less than two weeks before his 30th birthday.
Bivens allowed one run in three innings and was credited with the victory as the Giants avoided a sweep by the Angels and finished their homestand with a 3-3 record. He’s the oldest Giants pitcher to earn a win in his MLB debut since 31-year-old Ace Adams got the victory for the New York Giants on April 15, 1941.
The 6-foot-5 Bivens, a Virginia Beach native who was pitching in France five years ago, finished with five strikeouts. After he allowed a home run to Nolan Schanuel, Bivens retired eight straight batters before he was replaced by Sean Hjelle in the top of the fifth inning.
“You never want to forget what that day is like, that first day,” Giants manager Bob Melvin said. “Coming out of the bullpen, packed house here, big leagues, especially with what he’s been through in his career, that’s about as good as it gets.”
Bivens was given the win after the Giants scored nine runs in the fourth inning, solving, for the moment, anyway, their inability to cash in baserunners in scoring position.
With the Giants trailing 2-0, Thairo Estrada and Brett Wisely delivered two RBI doubles in the fourth inning, alleviating all pent-up pressure and opening the floodgates.
The Giants’ nine-run fourth was their biggest inning all season, as Jorge Soler drilled a three-run homer to left, and Matt Chapman and Austin Slater drove in runs during the rally.
Saturday, Melvin lamented his team’s “terrible” situational hitting as the Giants went 1-for-13 with runners in scoring position. The Giants left five more runners on base for the first three innings Sunday, including two in the third after Wisely doubled and Heliot Ramos singled to start the inning.
“You don’t see a nine spot very often,” Melvin said. “When you come off a loss like that, when you’ve left a lot of guys on base, and the at-bats weren’t great — especially the situational at-bats — it’s good to see them come out and have a game like that because it tests your mettle a little bit.”
Before Sunday’s game, the Giants placed Kyle Harrison, the scheduled starter, on the 15-day injured list with a right ankle sprain, forcing them to start Erik Miller. The Giants, though, also selected the righty Bivens from Triple-A Sacramento.
He was told the news about his promotion on Saturday night as the River Cats were playing in Reno.
“I was caught off guard, to say the least,” said Bivens, who was 4-0 this season with a 2.81 ERA in 41.2 innings with the River Cats. “It was in the middle of our game, during a time when I thought I’d be warming up. It was an awesome surprise.”
The undrafted Bivens grew up in State College, Pennsylvania. According to a November 2022 profile in The Athletic, he dreamed of pitching for the Penn State Nittany Lions, and he made the team in his first year at the school. But a failed marijuana test got him kicked off the team.
Bivens said he stopped smoking weed before he enrolled in school, but there were still remnants of the drug in his system.
After two more years of trying — and failing — to play for Penn State again, Bivens went to school at Rogers State, an NAIA school in Oklahoma.
After school and looking for an opportunity to continue his career despite not getting much interest from big league clubs, Bivens went overseas, first pitching in France and then the Czech Republic.
He returned to North America in 2020 and bounced around various teams and leagues. He was signed by the Giants in 2022, finally landing with an affiliated team.
Did Bivens think a day like Sunday was possible when he was pitching in Europe?
“Honestly, probably not,” he said. “But I’m happy I stuck with it and I’m happy I pursued baseball in the U.S. Because if it wasn’t for COVID, I don’t know if I’m here. Not thankful for it, but it looked out for me a little bit in the situation that it gave me.”
He has stayed in Sacramento since the start of the Triple-A season. In May, he was named Pacific Coast League pitcher of the month, the high point of four-plus seasons in the lower levels.
Sunday was the pinnacle of his career so far.
“There are great stories and you always feel good about someone making their Major League debut, but if you know the travails and everything that he’s been through, this is a real special one,” Melvin said before the game.
The Giants begin a six-game road trip on Monday with a three-game set against the Chicago Cubs, take part in the “Tribute to the Negro Leagues” game against the Cardinals at Rickwood Field in Birmingham, Alabama on Thursday, and have two more games in St. Louis next weekend.