Miller's spring debut a welcomed sight for injury-depleted Giants 'pen

SCOTTSDALE, Ariz. -- The Giants’ bullpen depth has been thinned by injuries as of late, but they welcomed a key arm back to the mound on Friday.

After missing the first three weeks of Cactus League action with lower back tightness, left-hander Erik Miller finally got to make his spring debut in the Giants’ 6-1 loss to the Reds at Scottsdale Stadium.

Miller entered the game in the top of the fourth and gave up a leadoff single, but he came back to strike out the next three batters to post a scoreless inning. It was a significant milestone for Miller, who hadn’t faced big league competition since suffering a season-ending left elbow injury last July.

“It was good,” said Miller, who topped out at 97.2 mph with his sinker. “It was as good as I could ask for. I threw strikes. That was the main thing. The strikeouts are a benefit, but I was, for the most part, throwing stuff where I wanted to. It was good. It’s obviously been a long time since I’ve thrown in a big league game. I don’t really count the rehab games. It’s been nine, 10 months to this point. It feels like it’s been a long time, for sure. But it was just good to get back out there and kind of get the nerves out of the way.”

Miller, 28, emerged as San Francisco’s top left-handed reliever before going down with the elbow injury last summer, so the club will need him to stay healthy and help fortify a bullpen that’s light on back-end experience. Despite the setbacks, the Giants believe Miller still has enough time to ramp up and be ready to go for Opening Night against the Yankees on March 25.

“Just to be out there, in all sincerity, is a big win for him, and obviously, for us, too,” manager Tony Vitello said. “I thought he threw the ball well. [Catcher Patrick] Bailey kind of looked at me like I had three heads when I asked him how the stuff was because it was good. But that’s who he is. I like the patient approach that’s been taken with him because he’s experienced and he’s got good stuff. He knows what he’s doing out there. We’ll just get him a few more touches on the mound and see where he’s at when the season starts.”

Miller is likely to pitch again on Monday and said he hopes to get four or five appearances under his belt before the start of the regular season. One factor working in Miller's favor is that the Giants have two off-days between their first five games of 2026, which might lessen the need for him to show that he can throw on back-to-back days this spring.

Miller logged a 1.50 ERA over 36 relief outings for the Giants last year, but he knows some of his under-the-hood numbers weren’t quite as sparkly. His expected ERA was 4.58, which he said has motivated him to work on reducing his 15.6% walk rate and avoid self-inflicted damage this season.

“I think it was good last year before I got hurt, but I think there's still a lot of things I want to improve on,” Miller said. “It's easy to look at the basic stats and be like, ‘That was amazing.’ But I understand if you look at other metrics, I definitely got lucky on a lot of things like the expected stuff, so I'm not going to act like I was up there just like shutting people down 1-2-3 every inning. But the basics are still there. It’s more so, as it always is, to limit the free passes.

“If I’m in the zone, it’s going to be good. It's just don't let guys get on base and then have to work around it. But I still feel really good. I didn't work on anything this offseason. I wasn't trying to add new pitches. You knew what I was going to do last year. I'm coming in with the same stuff. It’s more so just dialing it in. I think a lot of stuff is execution. Maybe some better pitch sequencing, feeling out of what I want to do.”

Worth noting

• The Giants made another round of cuts on Friday, reassigning left-hander Juan Sánchez and right-hander Wilkin Ramos to Minor League camp. Fifty-seven players remain in big league camp, including 14 non-roster invitees.

• Vitello said outfielder Jung Hoo Lee is likely to return to Scottsdale this weekend following Korea’s 10-0 loss to the Dominican Republic in their World Baseball Classic quarterfinal matchup in Miami on Friday.