Farewell to Scottsdale...Thank God.

The Giants wrapped up play at Scottsdale on Monday with a7-3 loss to Arizona. Yada, yada, yada. No one cared. There’s one more game left to play, a road outing Tuesday night against Kansas City (AAA arm Clayton Blackburn gets the start, showing how seriously the Giants are taking that one), and then Arizona is in the rear view mirror.

Thank God.

Chris Heston got spanked for six hits and four runs in four innings, and Matt Duffy went 2-for-4 with an RBI in a game nobody really cared about.

So this is what "breezy" looks like. (Mercury News photo)

The Giants are a mediocre 11-18, largely due to failures on the pitching staff. Maybe that’s why the real show Monday wasn’t at Scottsdale Stadium but over on the minor league field where Matt Cain started to look like, well, Matt Cain.

Granted, Cain’s 90-pitch outing came against a Cubs Class-A squad but let’s face it, even The Luper had a chance to square one up over the last couple of years. Cain went 5 1/3 innings, with Bay Area News Group’s Andrew Baggarly calling the effort “breezy” as Cain gave up a run on four hits, fanning five.

We’ll take “breezy” from a guy who basically lost the last two seasons to bone chips in his elbow and a strained flexor tendon, then underwent surgery again at the start of camp to remove a cyst from his pitching arm. Breezy? Just give us a dose of “healthy” and semi-conscious, would you?

The minor league camp is definitely where the action has been. Madison Bumgarner will skip the Royals game, as will most of the regulars, with MadBum getting a chance to stretch out his arm against more kids. Cueto has seen similar action, and he’ll be on the hill Wednesday as the Giants make an appearance at AAA Sacramento before heading home.

Cain will be back in action Saturday in the annual Bay Bridge Series at those green-clad hobgoblins across the puddle, with MadBum saving his powder for Opening Day at Milwaukee. The other members of the rotation, Jeff Samardzija and Jake Peavy, are reportedly healthy and ready for action. Samardzija did look markedly better in his final Cactus League outing while Peavy, well, if you can’t say something good about someone …..

It is a better feeling than last season. Despite all of the nicks and scrapes this spring, the 2015 Giants make optimism much easier to conjure up. We expect Bumgarner to be brilliant. Samardzija and Cueto were prized additions so spring numbers are going to be stuffed under the carpet until there’s a real track record, and Cain and Peavy are at least healthy.

A year ago only Bumgarner was a given. Cain and Peavy were ailing and would make only token appearances in the first half. Tim Lincecum and Tim Hudson were struggling; Lincecum was done by the end of June and Hudson was on the shelf for most of the summer.

The Giants found themselves in unlikely and unhappy circumstances: nine different pitches made starts including a combined 53 from Heston and Ryan Vogelsong. Heston’s 31 starts was just one behind Bumgarner’s team lead. So yeah, this is already better.

Susac exits stage left, for Sacramento (MLB Photo)

By the way, Cain made his Monday appearance throwing to Andrew Susac, who apparently is no longer the heir apparent to Posey. While Susac’s struggles with a surgically-repaired wrist led to speculation in many parts, including these, that he’d start the year on the DL, the Giants got their roster down to 25 men by shipping him back to AAA. Trevor Brown, who impressed in spring ball and during a brief stint with the big club late in 2015, gets the back-up backstop job for now.

Susac may be one of the more interesting cases to follow this year. It was Susac and Duffy who were repeatedly mentioned as trade targets every time the Giants looked outside for upgrades, and the Giants were reluctant to part with either.

Duffy appears to be a true keeper, but the stance on Susac could be softening. He regressed last year and his Cactus League play (including a .217 batting average) didn’t do anything to reverse the trend. A trip to Sacramento makes sense, giving him an opportunity to prove he can get and stay healthy. If both he and Brown perform, the Giants have trade bait. If one falters, there’s some redundancy.

Speaking of redundancy, Tim Lincecum is still available.

Note: MLB Network will carry tonight's 6:05 pm date with Kansas City. You'll have to ask them why.