One bad inning does in S.F. in loss to Houston
Gabe Kapler already set his rotation for this weekend’s series against the A’s, which is unusual for the Giants’ manager. He often announces who’s pitching on game day.
Including Wednesday. Trevor Cahill, whose season has been detoured with a finger issue, was added to the roster to start the finale of a 10game trip, and that meant Kapler would dip into his bullpen quite a bit.
He did. Seven pitchers were summoned, and the reviews mostly were good. But in bullpenheavy games, all it takes is for one reliever to crumble, and that was the case in the Giants’ 51 loss in Houston, which ended their longest trip of the season at 37.
“We have to play a better allaround brand of baseball if we’re going to go on the road and play the Rockies, Dodgers and — I know they haven’t gotten off to the best start — but a very talented and capable
team in the Astros,” Kapler said. “We have to play a really, really high level allaround baseball, and we just didn’t do that.”
The Astros teed off on lefthanded reliever Caleb Barager, who surrendered hits to four batters in the sixth inning, all of whom scored, including Martin Maldonado, whose threerun homer put the Astros ahead by four.
The Giants made a lineup change shortly before the first pitch, scratching .342hitting Austin Slater because of right elbow soreness, which he felt when swinging and throwing Tuesday. He tried to ease the pain in pregame work but couldn’t shake it.
Furthermore, .458hitting Donovan Solano missed his second straight game with abdominal soreness. Hunter Pence took Slater’s place in right field, and Wilmer Flores was the designated hitter.
“We strongly wanted to get to the off day and make sure we got out of the off day healthy,” said Kapler, whose club is off Thursday after playing 16 straight days. “Neither of those guys was available. When we get back to San Francisco, we’ll have more information.”
Kapler is willing to name his starters well in advance if he has starters who can pitch deep into games. That’s what he suddenly has with Johnny Cueto (Friday’s starter), Kevin Gausman (Saturday) and Logan Webb (Sunday).
Both Cueto and Gausman looked sharp in the latter innings of starts in Los Angeles, and Webb might have done the same in his last start if not for shoddy defense that forced him to labor.
Wednesday, Kapler pieced together his staff for nine innings, and Cahill lasted just 12⁄3 in his season debut. He was targeted to throw 50 pitches and lasted 55. While he didn’t give up any hits, he faced nine batters and issued four walks.
Cahill walked the bases loaded in the second inning, and Shaun Anderson came out of the bullpen to retire George Springer to end the inning. Kapler mixed and matched the rest of the night.
“My goal out there was to go three or four today with my pitch count, and it didn’t happen,” Cahill said. “I’m pretty comfortable facing those dudes because I faced them so many times. They were better than me today.”
Dereck Rodriguez, also added to the roster Wednesday — to create space, relievers Conner Menez and Rico Garcia were optioned — and displayed an increased velocity for 21⁄3 innings.
Rodriguez, whose spectacular rookie season was followed by a disappointing 2019, has added a tick or two to his heater, touching the mid90s, and pitched scoreless ball in the third and fourth innings.
Rodriguez labored in the fifth when putting his first four batters on base. The first, Myles Straw, was thrown out by Tyler Heineman trying to steal. Springer and Josh Reddick walked, and Alex Bregman’s RBI single chased Rodriguez.
The Giants repeatedly were fooled by the mastery of Houston starter Zack Greinke, who struck out seven in 61⁄3 innings and doesn’t necessarily hesitate to let batters know what’s coming or give pointers to umpires.
Clint Vondrak, making his bigleague debut calling balls and strikes, called ball four on Heineman on a pitch that clearly was a strike.
“Let’s go. Geez. It was right there, man. You can’t keep missing those,” Greinke told Vondrak.
The Giants’ only run came in the game’s opening moments, leadoff man Mike Yastrzemski tripling and Alex Dickerson singling him home.