Astros 4, Giants 1: S.F. swept, then shows support for Warriors.
HOUSTON — The Giants wanted to show their support. The way Houston teams have dominated Bay Area teams lately, the Warriors could use all the help they can get.
After getting swept in two games by the Astros, including a 4-1 matinee loss Wednesday, the Giants wore Warriors gear on their trip to Chicago.
The cross-sport support is nothing new. The Astros wore Rockets jerseys on their last trip, and Justin Verlander took along a basketball for good measure.
“I’m sure everybody’s tired and ailing,” Jeff Samardzija said of his hoops peers after lasting 42⁄3 innings and exiting amid the Astros’ decisive rally. “It’s just cool to show some support for a hometown team that I think a lot of guys are pretty close to, watching them being here so long and both teams having so much success over the past years. Something cool to do.”
Even after a tough loss.
“You do it anyway,” he said. “You’re not doing it based on winning or losing. You’re doing it for other reasons.”
Samardzija gave up George Springer’s two-run homer in the three-run fifth and issued five walks, the most in his three seasons with the Giants. This season, he has 23 walks and 25 strikeouts, quite a change from last year when his 6.41-1 strikeout-to-walk ratio ranked second in the league behind Clayton Kershaw’s 6.73-1.
Manager Bruce Bochy cited Samardzija’s late start to the season (first appearance was April 20), caused by his pectoral strain that forced the righthander to ease into the season.
“He’s still finding it right now,” Bochy said. “He’s not where he’s going to be. It’s part of the reason why I didn’t want to leave him out there. That’s going to get better.”
Samardzija was close to completing four scoreless innings, but right fielder Andrew McCutchen whiffed on a seemingly routine fly with two outs — “I missed it, plain and simple” — permitting a hustling Carlos Correa to score from first base.
Samardzija’s fifth-inning demise began with a one-out walk that put him in the stretch, and Springer crushed a misplaced slider. Samardzija walked another batter, leading to another run.
“When you don’t have your best stuff, you don’t want to be missing in the middle of the plate,” he said. “We need to be more aggressive early in the count and have a little more confidence in the pitches we’re throwing, trying to avoid those 2-0, 3-1 counts.”
The bullpen had an ample workload, again. Just four times
in the past 17 games, a Giants starter lasted at least six innings, and the rotation ERA in that span is 6.25.
In the two games in Houston, Samardzija and Andrew Suarez lasted only 82⁄3 innings, not a recipe for success against the defending champs, especially when the opposing starters are Gerrit Cole and Verlander.
The Giants’ only run Wednesday came on Gorkys Hernandez’s triple and Buster Posey’s sacrifice fly.
Outscored 15-3 in the interleague series, the Giants aren’t the only ones from the Bay Area having a rough go against Houston teams. The A’s see the Astros more as a division foe and have lost five straight to them, getting outscored 43-9. And, of course, we know the Warriors’ story.
A feeble fourth quarter cost them in Tuesday’s Game 4 in Oakland, and Game 5 of the Western Conference finals is here Thursday. Shortly after the Warriors were scheduled to land, the Giants were scheduled to take off, in Warriors attire.
That was batting coach Alonzo Powell’s idea. The San Francisco native and Lincoln High graduate, who was 10 when the Warriors won the 1974-75 title, was on the Astros’ staff last year. Giants clubhouse coordinator Brad Grems got in touch with Warriors director of team operations Eric Housen, who set up the Giants with 60 sets of sweatsuits and T-shirts.