Giants’ latest heartbreak comes in extra innings
Samardzija gives up two home runs, one a wall tickler
ATLANTA — Jeff Samardzija might be a 10game winner if he pitched for the Houston Astros. Or for any of the NL West clubs that treated the first half of the season like the Bonneville Salt Flats.
But Samardzija is a Giant, and he is being well compensated for his services. So far this season, he is being paid to lose.
The right-hander was as durable as ever and kept up his strike-pounding ways against the Atlanta Braves in the Giants’ 5-3, 11-inning loss Wednesday night.
But it took a tying home run from Hunter Pence in the ninth inning to prevent Samardzija from becoming the first 10-game loser in the big leagues this season. His unforgivable sin: giving up two home runs, one of them a wall tickler, in seven innings.
For the second time on this trip, Pence gave the Giants new life in the ninth inning only for the team to get its plug pulled. Matt Kemp hit a two-run home run off right-hander Cory Gearrin in the 11th as the Giants lost for the sixth time in seven games on this trip.
“It’s our third comeback on this trip and we lost them all, and that’s disheartening,” said Giants manager Bruce Bochy, throwing in the eight-run deficit the Giants made up in the first game of the trip, a 10-9 loss at Coors Field.
“We just couldn’t finish it. We had two in Colorado we couldn’t finish. That’s what makes the loss even tougher.”
Pence looked up and watched Kemp’s homer soar over his head and into the right field seats – a routine out in two dozen big league ballparks, but not here in the Braves’ cozy new home on Windy Ridge. Gearrin was in his second inning of work for a bullpen that is one man short while Hunter Strickland serves his suspension. Sam Dyson also extended the game with two impressive innings.
But the Giants offense could not take advantages of the extra chances.
“We had what, three hits against their starter?” Bochy said. “That’s kind of been our deal here.”
Samardzija threw just 79 pitches in seven innings. He struck out eight and did not walk a batter. Want to hear something insane? Over his last 10 starts, he has struck out 77 and walked just three.
Want to hear something even more insane? He has a 2-5 record over those starts.
Matt Adams hit a tworun home run in the fourth inning and Tyler Flowers needed a replay review to reverse his single and allow him to jog the rest of the way home in the seventh. Flowers’ high drive hit the top of the wall and brushed against the net behind it before bouncing back into play.
That was all the damage against Samardzija, who easily could be headed to the All-Star Game if he wore Dodger blue or Houston orange or whatever weird shade the Diamondbacks are wearing these days.
Samardzija threw the Giants’ 40th quality start of the season, second only to the Washington Nationals in the major leagues. The minimum standards of a quality start (six innings, three earned runs) pencil out to a mediocre 4.50 ERA. But it’s an indication that, by and large, the rotation is not pitching a typical team out of a ballgame.
The Giants are not a typical team. They have three quality starts in Atlanta and one victory.
“That’s why it’s been so impressive, his mental outlook,” Bochy said of Samardzija. “This can get to a pitcher but not with him. He knows what he can control. He doesn’t let it bother him. He just keeps coming at you.”
Said Samardzija: “I take pride in pitching. I love this game. I’d pitch this way in my backyard.”
The Giants aren’t winning when they come back. They aren’t winning when they get a quality start. They just aren’t winning, period.
They faced Sean Newcomb, a rookie making his third major league start, and you’ll never guess what happened: they managed just three hits against him in six innings, and only pushed across a run on Brandon Belt’s triple in the second.
Whether it’s at the outset of the game or sometime after the palate cleanser, the Giants simply go too silent for too long a stretch in most games. They didn’t get a baserunner in the third through sixth innings.
But despite their minus88 run differential, they have outscored opponents from the eighth inning and beyond – and they rallied to tie on the strength of two swings. Denard Span tripled and scored on a wild pitch in the eighth, and then Pence came through in the ninth for the second time on this road trip.