In rare KNBR interview, Brian Wilson breaks down SF Giants closer woes

The Giants haven’t had a bona fide closer this season and sure seem to be suffering from their bullpen uncertainty. So who better to ask about the ninth inning than the closer who saved the first World Series clincher in San Francisco history?

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Three-time All-Star closer Brian Wilson made a rare appearance on KNBR’s “Murph and Markus” morning show on Wednesday, as the Giants continue to have trouble in the ninth inning. The man known as “the Beard” was the team’s closer from 2007 through 2012, which most famously saw him save Game 5 of the 2010 World Series to win the Giants’ first title since they moved from New York to San Francisco in 1958.

Giants president of baseball operations Buster Posey declined to pursue a veteran closer this offseason and defended that decision in a KNBR interview three weeks ago. But since then, the lack of a consistent closer has only looked worse, as the Giants have blown three ninth-inning leads en route to losses in the past two weeks.

The general baseball belief is that the last three outs of a game are the toughest and require guys with nerves of steel to handle the job. Javier Lopez, Wilson’s old teammate and a longtime middle reliever, made that point in a separate KNBR interview on Wednesday. Wilson, though, pushed back at that premise and didn’t really play along with the hosts’ inquiries.

“Some people might say the first three outs are pretty difficult, too — the umpire’s new zone, the crowd, the adrenaline,” Wilson said. “I think every inning, if we’re being real, in the big leagues is a little bit of a heart palpitation. There’s no easy inning, in my book. I think the perception of it being the hardest three outs could play a role in one’s mindset, for sure.”

Wilson said some of his hardest innings were actually when he came into games in the eighth inning with runners on base and had to pitch the team out of a jam. He said he thinks “there’s a lot of glory given in the ninth inning” because of how exciting it is to end the game. 

“Being a professional athlete takes a different mindset of problem solving, and I think that’s what a closer’s role is,” Wilson said. “Whether you have it or not that night, you’ve got to problem solve with the best of them. So it can create a pretty big, high adrenaline kind of moment where you’ll see a lot of guys have sort of an act or these yelling, aggressive-type moments because your heart is racing at 165 beats per minute.”

Wilson also weighed in on a topic that came up on Monday, when de facto closer Keaton Winn pitched in his third game in a row and blew his second save in that stretch. NBC Sports Bay Area analyst Shawn Estes sharply criticized Giants manager Tony Vitello for putting Winn back out there for a third day in a row.

Wilson is no stranger to the regular usage life — in his peak closing years from 2008 to 2011, Wilson pitched in three consecutive games 12 times and even pitched in four consecutive games three times. Wilson said he was able to do this because he approach the job prepared to pitch every single day.

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“I didn’t really have any built-in days off, so I would come to the park ready. Sometimes, it would be an ‘if necessary’ night, like, ‘Yeah, you pitched three days in a row, we want to give you the night off. But if the game’s close and we need you, you’re going to pitch,’” Wilson said. “There were stretches where I may not have pitched in the game, but I got hot like 95% of each month.

“It does take a toll on you. But again, if you’re a professional athlete, you’re the elite of the elite. You have to figure out how to get it done. Each person’s different.”

So how does one develop into being a closer? Hilariously, Wilson claimed he moved to the bullpen because he didn’t want to “do the bucket” during batting practice. For most non-MLB teams, the previous day’s starting pitcher will sit at a bucket behind second base during batting practice, collecting the balls that are thrown in from throughout the outfield and then carrying the bucket to the pitcher’s mound to restock the supply.

“That was lame and boring, and I didn’t like it,” Wilson said. “And I knew that relievers didn’t have to do that job, so I just moved myself to the bullpen.”

That may not be entirely accurate — Wilson was a reliever in college, after all. As for what Wilson has been up to recently? He told hosts Brian Murphy and Markus Boucher he’s primarily been “getting the golf game dialed in” during his retirement from baseball. Wilson called himself a “pretty phenomenal putter,” but quipped that other parts of his game are where he can struggle.

“Sometimes, Daddy can be a little errant off the tee,” Wilson said.