WEST SACRAMENTO -- When last we saw Hayden Birdsong in a San Francisco Giants uniform, he was struggling to throw strikes, a baffling turn of events.
The right-hander is back at Triple-A Sacramento now, working through things just as the big league team has a major need for a reliable starter after Landen Roupp incurred a knee strain and the Giants demoted Kai-Wei Teng.
Birdsong's problems are not all ironed out, though - he walked five batters in three innings Wednesday, and while he now has some big league service time and at times wowed the Giants early on, he's probably not quite ready to return to San Francisco.
"I understand why I'm back down here," he told the Chronicle this week. "I need to figure my s -- out to get back there."
"He's a mess," said one scout who was at Birdsong's start against El Paso at Sutter Health Park. "He flashes plus-stuff, but rarely repeats. I've seen him outstanding in the past, so I know it's in there."
No one seems to know how, exactly, Birdsong's location went south. It's not as if he never issued walks, but never to this extent, and the contrast with earlier in the season is particularly notable. He didn't walk a man all spring training, then was averaging 3.8 walks per nine innings through June (though he did walk four in four innings his final start of the month). In July, he walked 13 men in nine innings over three appearances.
At Sacramento, he's averaging 5.6 walks per nine innings.
"It's weird," Birdsong said. "I don't know what happened. I'm waiting for someone to tell me. It's frustrating, I want to be up there helping us win, but I know I wasn't helping us win."
Birdsong said he feels fine physically, which leaves two options: mental or mechanical - maybe a little of both.
"I'd say it's mechanical," he said. "I changed a lot in the last year, added stuff and took away other things, and I have to get back to where I need to be."
That means ditching the windup he added this spring and used even when working out of the bullpen to open the season. He's back to his previous look, throwing only from the stretch. "I didn't ask," he said. "I just did it."
Going back to starting after 11 appearances out of the bullpen was, perhaps, more of an adjustment than anticipated, too, especially when combined with adding the windup and moving on the rubber. The location issues really became apparent in the third and fourth innings of two of Birdsong's final three outings with the Giants; his final start, he walked four without recording an out.
"I want to throw better," he said. "I want to find my confidence that no one can hit me. It's not easy to do that."
Catcher Sam Huff agreed that's the key. Huff caught Birdsong during the spring, when Birdsong, ranked the team's sixth-best prospect last year, made the team essentially because of his tremendous command, striking out 18 and walking none in 12 innings. Now he struggles to throw first-pitch strikes and opponents are making him work hard, his rate of pitches per at-bat zooming.
"Having Birdie in the spring, he just needs to get that confidence back to go after guys," Huff said. "He maybe thinks he needs to do more, and I emphasize to him, 'You don't need to do any more, dude, you're a great pitcher. You have nasty, good stuff. I've faced you. I get to catch you. I didn't want to face you -- trust your ability.' He knows."
The scout who saw Birdsong's latest start said he looks "too mechanically conscious."
"He seems confused," the scout said. "He's not pitching with the freedom he once had. He pitched with no fear of failure at one time."
Huff has caught enough pitchers to see many of them go through spurts with command issues. It's a normal part of the maturation process, but it can be jarring for pitchers who've never dealt with it - and Birdsong is a particularly forthright type who radiates self-assurance. Few ever would associate him with a dip in confidence.
"I've seen it so many times, where guys have gone to the big leagues, then the confidence gets knocked around," Sacramento manager Dave Brundage said. "A lot of young guys don't have that experience to draw from to gain that confidence back, but Hayden's going to figure it out.
"Even for the toughest of hombres, it's a humbling game. They all get humbled at some point, it's just a matter of when. It never happened to Hayden at the minor league level because he flew through the organization -- you can't knock that, because he looked like a million bucks."
Usually the top prospects emerge from such stretches "much, much better," Brundage said. "Very rarely have I seen someone with Hayden's ability not come out of it better."
"You never want to get sent down to Triple-A to learn something," Huff said, "but it does put into your head, 'OK, what do I need to get better? How do I get that consistency?'
"I know it might not seem like it sometimes from his standpoint, but Hayden's doing the right things. He knows what he needs to do, he knows that he's a good pitcher."