You’re not going to win three World Series titles in five years without unearthing a few hidden gems here and there. Just ask the San Francisco Giants, who know a thing or two about that.
In fact, one of them just threw a no-hitter.
That would be Chris Heston. Making his 12th start of the year, the rookie right-hander blanked the New York Mets in the hit column to lead the Giants to a 5-0 victory at Citi Field on Tuesday. Heston did hit three batters in the process, but he also struck out 11.
After the game, Heston was understandably in a bit of a daze.
“I’m still not sure what just happened,” said the 27-year-old, via the Giants’ official Twitter account. “It’s awesome.”
Well, what happened was that Heston threw the Giants’ fourth no-hitter since 2012 and 17th in their history. It was also just the third Giants no-hitter by a rookie. The last of those was spun way back in 1912 by a fellow named Christy Mathewson.
So, just like that, Heston can now put himself in the same sentence as one of the greatest pitchers in baseball history. If anything can sum up the kind of year he’s having, it’s that.
When the year began, Heston was just some no-name from the minor leagues who made the Giants’ roster out of spring training because they had nobody else to fill in for the injured Matt Cain. At no point during his days in the minors was he a top prospect, nor was he likely to become one in his age-27 season.
But now look at him. Heston owns a rock-solid 3.77 ERA and 66-18 strikeout-to-walk ratio in 74.0 innings. Next to only the eternally awesome Madison Bumgarner, he’s arguably been the Giants’ second-best starting pitcher this season.
How did this happen, you ask?
Oh, you know. It’s your basic “guy goes from being not so good to quite good through hard work” story.
It’s not hard to see why Heston was never considered a top prospect during his days in the minors. He was only a 12th-round draft pick in 2009 and came into 2015 with a good-not-great 3.56 ERA in parts of six minor league seasons.
Heston also wasn’t showing off much that impressed the scouts. Here’s what Baseball America made of him coming into 2015:
Heston is direct to the plate with an 86-89 mph two-seam fastball with some armside run, a slow low-70s curveball and a fringe-average changeup. It’s unlikely Heston can find big league success by letting big league hitters put pitch after pitch into play, but he will serve as a reliable emergency starter option.
And this was Kiley McDaniel of FanGraphs‘ two cents:
The 6’3/195 inventory starter got a big league look last summer and has fringy stuff: he sits 87-91 and hits 92 mph, mixing in a solid average curveball and average changeup. He’s a pitch-to-contact ground ball #5 starter with little margin for error.
So, Heston was your basic dime-a-dozen sinkerballer who didn’t have the goods to even compete with big league hitters, much less get them out on a regular basis.
Thing is, though, these scouting reports were actually dated by the time Heston showed up to spring training.
As FanGraphs‘ Eno Sarris noted, Heston spent the winter packing some weight onto his 6’3″ frame and benefited accordingly:
This wasn’t lost on Giants pitching coach Dave Righetti, who was taken aback when he saw Heston this spring.
“Oh gosh. You could tell, physically, he looked the part,” Righetti told Henry Schulman of the San Francisco Chronicle. “I did a lot of talking, telling him, ‘It’s your time now.’”
Righetti didn’t just tell Heston it was his time. He challenged Heston to make it his time, making it clear to Heston that he was in a “range now where you’re done with the minors.” It was time to put up or shut up.
Heston certainly put up this spring, posting a 2.40 ERA in five appearances to put himself on the Giants’ radar. And ever since then, he’s been good more often than he’s been bad.
That has much to do with how Heston has held on to the extra velocity he showed off during the spring. Where he once sat in the 86-90-mph range, FanGraphs puts his average fastball this year at just shy of 90 miles per hour, and he can throw 91-92 mph when he’s feeling it.
That’s good velocity for a sinker, and Heston’s is quite good at getting ground balls.
Per Brooks Baseball, he went into Tuesday getting grounders on 53.6 percent of his sinkers that were put in play. His changeup and curveball also boasted strong grounder rates, hence his overall 54.0 ground-ball rate.
Of course, it’s not just stuff that makes Heston effective. He also locates well, consistently working at and around the bottom of the strike zone:
When Heston’s really on, his ability to locate his stuff results not just in ground balls but in whiffs as well.
This was especially true of Heston’s performance on Tuesday night. Per ESPN.com, he balanced his 14 ground-ball outs with 11 swinging strikes. It was the sixth time he had racked up double-digit ground-ball outs and the fifth time he got into double digits in whiffs.
However, understand that Heston isn’t perfect.
When he takes the hill, Heston operates in one of two modes: really good or really bad. Tuesday night’s no-hitter was the seventh time he’s allowed no more than one earned run. In his other five starts, he’s allowed at least five earned runs.
So far, he has yet to show he can be good enough on nights when he doesn’t have it.
Still, this is easy to forgive when a guy’s been good more often than he’s been bad. And knowing that the Giants have gotten far more than they ever could have hoped to get from their former non-prospect, they’re not about to pick any nits with the season Heston is having.
Rather, they should place him among the unheralded players they’ve been glad to find in recent years. In 2010, it was guys like Andres Torres and Sergio Romo. In 2012, it was guys like Brandon Crawford and Gregor Blanco. Last year was the year of Joe Panik and, in the end, old friend Travis Ishikawa.
The Giants sure have a knack for finding them, all right. And in Heston, it looks like they’ve found a guy who could be remembered as fondly as any of them.
Stats courtesy of Baseball-Reference.com and FanGraphs unless otherwise noted/linked.
If you want to talk baseball, hit me up on Twitter.
Read more MLB news on BleacherReport.com