Bailey Ober’s season took an unusual turn in San Francisco, and he handled it the same way he’s handled most of the changes lately: without much fuss.
Ober, who would rather be in the rotation every fifth or sixth day, made the first relief appearance of his big league career on Sunday. The result was a clean one. He threw three shutout innings and picked up his first save after asking, half-jokingly, for exactly that before the outing.
“I kind of joked with them before,” Ober said, “like, get me a save.”
It was a fitting cap to a second half that has been anything but routine. Since coming off the injured list in July, Ober has worked on seven or more days of rest in four of his 11 starts.
He has only gone on four days’ rest twice during that stretch. For a pitcher who has built his big league identity as a dependable, innings-logging starter, that’s a major shift.
“The routine’s definitely been different the last 3-4 weeks or so,” he said. “Just kind of making sure I’m ready to take the ball whenever I need to, and whenever they want me to go throw, I’ll be ready. That’s kind of just been my mindset, control what I can control and just be ready to take the ball.”
That flexibility has not gone unnoticed inside the clubhouse. Manager Derek Shelton said Ober has handled the back-and-forth with professionalism.
“How he’s handled it is extremely professional in all cases,” Shelton said. “I give him a ton of credit for it.
I think communication is a big key here, making sure we overcommunicate. I think the main thing is he has an idea of the ‘why’ when we’re doing things.
That doesn’t necessarily mean that he agrees with it, and I’m not saying he pushed back on it at all, but I do think it really shows how quality of a teammate he is by his ability to take some of the adjustments that we deemed necessary.”
Shelton also said it meant something to see Ober come away with a save after taking on the bullpen role.
“That is probably the greatest thing that happened,” Shelton said. “To be able to honor him postgame. … To be able to give him his first ball, your first Major League save, his teammates being able to acknowledge, me being able to acknowledge in front of his teammates how good of a teammate he is, 100 percent that there's a statistical component to it I think is very important and again goes into the appreciation factor.”
There may be one more start left for Ober this season, with a weekend home outing against Texas next on the schedule. But he knows nothing is guaranteed beyond that. He is one year from free agency, set for a raise in arbitration from the $5.2 million he’s made this year, and part of a rotation picture that could get crowded by 2027.
“I feel like there’s always going to be options,” he said. “Especially when we have eight starters.
Guys like me, Joe [Ryan], Pablo [López], and Dean [Kremer] will all be free agents in the same year. And then you have a lot of young guys that have a lot of potential behind us.
So there’s always going to be chatter and thoughts. You never know if you’re going to get moved whenever that stuff is.
… Obviously I’d love to stay here. But you never know.
It’s kind of up to the bigwigs up top to decide that.”
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