Troy Taormina-USA TODAY Sports
The resilience is proven, Tuesday demonstrating the Giants will continue to fight.
Through one-third of the season, the talent is very much in question.
Not really worth questioning, though, is how tired the Giants must be.
The Giants will limp home after their 10-game road trip finished Wednesday in a pseudo bullpen game that got away late, the Giants falling 5-1 to the Astros at Minute Maid Park and finishing their trip by dropping all three series.
In all they went 3-7, plunging to 8-12 on the season before coming back home for a three-game set with the A’s. But that won’t start until Friday, their 16-games-in-16-days sprint over, finishing by needing to piece together nine innings with a staff that no longer includes Jeff Samardzija or Drew Smyly.
Their lineup lacked Austin Slater (late scratch) and Donovan Solano (abdominal soreness), and it showed, Zack Greinke not needing the heat he once had to guile his way past bats that, apart from short stretches like the Giants’ seventh-through-10th innings Tuesday, have looked hollow.
Not being able to figure out Greinke can be forgiven. Greinke went 6 1/3 solid innings, surrendering just a run on seven hits while striking out seven.
There were times when it looked as if Greinke couldn’t figure out catcher Martin Maldonado, either. On occasion the big righty held up a single finger, appearing to call for himself to throw a fastball. Before he was pulled in the seventh, he abandoned the signs and just started yelling out to Maldonado.
Zack Greinke: Calling out the signs. ?
Legend. pic.twitter.com/TNws9niKXF
— Rob Friedman (@PitchingNinja) August 13, 2020
It’s fun, unless you’re the Giants, who went 1-for-6 with runners in scoring position against the Astros star.
The Giants’ pitching, on a night when it could have been, was not terrible. Trevor Cahill, making his first start of the year, had no control but also didn’t get into much trouble. He lasted just five outs, walking four and striking out two, but Shaun Anderson entered after 55 Cahill pitches and kept the Astros off the scoreboard.
Dereck Rodriguez, called up earlier in the day, was the most impressive Giants pitcher, averaging 92.8 mph on his fastball, up from 90.6 last year. His stuff looked good, even when it let him down. Gabe Kapler left Rodriguez in to face Alex Bregman with two on and one out in the fifth, and Bregman lined an RBI single up the middle to tie it up, 1-1. Lefty Caleb Baragar entered and got righty Yuli Gurriel to ground into a double play.
But Baragar would then falter, Martin Maldonado’s three-run bomb the big blow in a game-deciding sixth inning. The Giants now have given up a home run in 16 straight games, extending their longest such streak in franchise history.
The Giants’ only run was engineered by Mike Yastrzemski, who went 3-for-4 amid a downturn during August, so his nice day will help. The leadoff hitter served what looked to be a double to left field, but Kyle Tucker dove and came up empty. Yastrzemski, hustling all the way, turned it into a triple and scored on Alex Dickerson’s single.
That would conclude the Giants’ hitting, which got an early jump on the off-day.