Landen Roupp winces after being hit by a line drive on August 20, 2025.
On Thursday August 21, 2025, the San Francisco Giants organization lost two key pitchers to injury after Landen Roupp sprained his knee and Blade Tidwell hurt his shoulder.
Roupp just returned from the injured list less than a week ago and was in the midst of his second start back from injury. Now, manager Bob Melvin is certain that Roupp will be back on the injured list again.
On the other hand, all signs pointed to a call-up for Tidwell after his recent great stretch at AAA Sacramento and the struggles of fellow rookie Kai-Wei Teng.
Instead, the Giants will have to navigate the loss of Roupp and do so without calling upon Tidwell, their most promising pitching prospect as of late.
Make no mistake, the Giants can field five starting pitchers. They have plenty of options, just no clear best option. So, here’s what they could do.
Keep Teng, Recall A Familiar Face
After Kai-Wei Teng’s struggles in his two most recent starts, manager Bob Melvin wouldn’t definitively say if Teng would make his next start.
Many people speculated that the Giants were leaning towards sending Teng back to AAA to work on his control, which he struggled with mightily at the big league level. Tidwell seemed the best option to replace Teng.
Now, the Giants could, and most likely will, just keep Teng around and give him a few more shots to grow into a competent big league starter. That fills one of their spots.
For the other rotation spot, vacated by Landen Roupp, the most obvious option would be to recall Carson Whisenhunt or Hayden Birdsong. Both have been members of the Giants rotation at different points this season, and both have shown flashes of future stardom.
If the Giants want to keep Whisenhunt in the minors to ramp up for 2026, which many people believe they might, the Giants haven’t given Birdsong a shot at starting since Mid-July.
But depending on familiar faces is far from the only option San Francisco has.
Shore Up Bullpen, Give Relief Arm A New Role
The Giants do have one candidate to start already on their roster: RHP Carson Seymour.
Seymour has worked exclusively out of the bullpen in 9 games for the Giants this season. But he’s worked in a long relief role, throwing 20 innings in those nine games.
And, before his call-up this season, he was almost exclusively a starter in AAA Sacramento. He made 15 starts for the River Cats this season, fourth-most on the team.
In a corresponding move, the Giants would likely recall Birdsong or Keaton Winn to pitch out of the bullpen.
The Future Focused Plan
Let’s face it: the Giants’ likelihood of making the playoffs in 2025 has become very, very, very slim. It’s likely in everyone’s best interest to shift their mindset about how this year’s roster is managed to a future-focused strategy. That means giving several players a “tryout” of sorts to see who performs the best.
If the Giants embrace the “tryout” mentality for the rest of the season, they should send Teng back to AAA and call up Mason Black and Trevor McDonald.
Black and McDonald haven’t been great this season, but they do lead the AAA Rivercats in starts. They’re also the only two starting pitchers on the 40-man roster who haven’t gotten a shot to start this season. The Giants may as well see if they can kick it at the MLB level.
As you can see, even with two devastating injuries, the Giants have plenty of options at starting pitcher. It just all depends on how creative they want to get.
What moves do you want to see the Giants make in the rotation?
Ethan Inman is a sports journalist covering the San Francisco 49ers, San Francisco Giants and Las Vegas Raiders for heavy.com. He also co-hosts a college football podcast for The Voice of College Football, and writes about the NBA and MLB. He has previously covered the USC Trojans, the NHL, college baseball, and the intersection of sports and popular culture for other publications. He is based in the greater Los Angeles area. More about Ethan Inman
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