Sports: Giants’ Posey out of lineup after precautionary MRI on left thumb.
Going the distance: Starter tosses his first shutout as a Giant; Crawford, Panik each provide offense with home runs
SAN DIEGO >> Jeff Samardzija’s athletic background was on the Notre Dame gridiron, and he still treats every start like a fly pattern.
His objective is to go as far and as hard as he can, and if it all works out, he’ll save his teammates the pounding of all those short-yardage situations.
In baseball terms: He wants to throw as many innings as possible. It is a desire formed from a slurry of selflessness (saving the bullpen to fight another day) and perhaps a smidge of ego (every fifth day belongs to him, and he is loathe to cede the outcome to anyone else).
It explains how, even in the Giants’ sideways season, Samardzija has retired more batters than anyone else in the National League. And how he recorded all 27 outs Monday night in the Giants’ 3-0 victory over the San Diego Padres.
Brandon Crawford continued his power surge with a 411-foot home run in the fourth inning and fellow middle infielder Joe Panik flexed his muscles while clanking a tworun shot high off the right field pole in the eighth as the Giants beat the rebuilding Padres for just the fifth time in 14 games this season.
Samardzija held the Padres to three hits, struck out five, allowed just one runner to reach scoring position and tended goal better than Jacques Plante while picking up five ground outs hit with varying degrees of velocity.
He didn’t walk a batter. He didn’t even get to a three-ball count.
It was his first shutout as a Giant and the fourth of his career. And he ranks first in the NL with 176 2/3 innings pitched.
“Just means I’m a workhorse, I guess,” said Samardzija, who lauded pitchers as recent as CC Sabathia who would long heavy workloads and throw on short rest. “It’s so mental, this game. If you think you don’t feel good, then you’re not going to feel good. Your mind is so strong. If you can just trick yourself into saying you’re fine, a lot of times, you’ll be fine.
“It shows you’re a professional. It shows you did your work in the offseason. Your season goes two ways in September, and (one way is) to stay on the gas and take advantage of these hitters who have 600 at-bats under their belt and maybe aren’t feeling great. You’ve got to pick and choose what you do, and I like to pride myself on mental toughness.”
Samardzija attacked from the outset. He won a nine-pitch confrontation with Carlos Asuaje in the first inning in which he pounded seven consecutive strikes before getting the Padres rookie to swing through a curveball.
Samardzija credited Giants pitching coach Dave Righetti with encouraging him to stay over the rubber and break his hands a bit later, which allowed him to raise his arm angle.
“I feel I can manipulate the ball to where I want it, and that’s’ what it’s all about with pitching — getting yourself into a situation where you can command the ball to both sides of the plate,” Samardzija said. “You’ve got to tip your hat to a guy like Rags who doesn’t quit. He’s always looking to make his players better.”
Samardzija’s combination of curve, splitter and slider was the sharpest it’s been all season. His desire was not dull, either. The Padres had bossed him for 15 runs over his three previous starts against them this year.
“I kind of owed these guys one,” Samardzija said. “They got me the last two times out. You take a little pride in yourself, going after a team that’s had your number.”
Samardzija assisted on five ground outs, and used his cleat to redirect one of them to Panik in the seventh inning. Samardzija laughed and said Pablo Sandoval keeps likening him to Zlatan Ibrahimovic, a player for Manchester United, and that he needed to show off his footwork.
“Kick save and a beaut’,” Samardzija said. “It’s a funny game isn’t it? Two or three months ago, that ball probably goes into the bullpen for a triple. That’s why you can’t take this game too seriously. You’ve got to put your work in and care about it, and the way it happens, it happens. But you’ve got to have fun out there, too.”
He received the chance at his first shutout since 2015 with the White Sox when Panik followed the crack of the bat with the bong of baseball against metal in the eighth.
“When Joey did that, it let everyone take a deep breath, and my pitch count was all right,” Samardzija said. “It came down to me making pitches and not letting two guys get on (in the ninth).”
He retired the side. He probably didn’t care about bucking a larger trend. Winning is always enough, no matter what pattern you run to get there.
“The situation we’re in right now, we’ve got to find an identity and what works for us,” Samardzija said. “Over the history of the Giants, that’s great pitching and great defense.”
• An MRI exam on Buster Posey’s sore left thumb showed a bone bruise and no ligament damage. He was out of Monday’s lineup and is listed as day to day but likely to miss all three games of the series.