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HOUSTON–A day after suffering at the hands of the second-best pitcher in the American League, the Giants squared off against the only player posting better numbers than Houston’s Gerrit Cole.
Their matchup with Justin Verlander didn’t end well either.
After winning two in a row to end a seven-game homestand, the Giants lost to the defending champions for the second straight day as Jeff Samardzija couldn’t match Verlander’s excellence in a 4-1 defeat.
“It’s such a good staff over here, you’ve got your hands full,” manager Bruce Bochy said. “We just couldn’t do much offensively.”
Both Cole and Verlander tamed the Giants’ offense and San Francisco’s starting staff failed to stack up in a two-game sweep against the Astros.
Though Verlander entered with the best ERA in the American League at 1.05, eight-tenths of a point better than Cole’s 1.86 mark, the Giants did have experience overcoming the right-hander in a tough situation before.
It was Verlander who started Game 1 of the 2012 World Series for the Tigers at AT&T Park when Pablo Sandoval blasted home runs in each of his first two at-bats to knock the Detroit ace out of the game after just four innings.
While Verlander and Sandoval both moved on to different teams later in their careers, Sandoval returned to the Giants last summer and was a lock to start Wednesday’s game due to his history against the Astros’ best starter.
This time around, it was the pitcher who got the best of the hitter, as Verlander retired Sandoval on a groundout in the third inning and a popout in the fifth en route to another impressive outing.
The Astros didn’t reward the right-hander with his first lead of the game until the bottom of the fifth, when Samardzija walked No. 9 hitter Tony Kemp for the second time in as many plate appearances.
The base on balls brought leadoff hitter George Springer to the plate and Springer unloaded on what ranks as one of the worst two-strike mistakes of Samardzija’s season. With catcher Nick Hundley set up off the outside corner, Samardzija grooved a slider right over the heart of the plate and Springer pounced on it.
“I thought for most of the day (the slider) was pretty good,” Samardzija said. “It was pretty effective away and we weren’t getting hurt with it. It was just a pitch that stayed middle.”
A 411-foot blast ricocheted off the wall above the Crawford Boxes in left field, and three batters later, Samardzija’s day was over. A RBI single from Carlos Correa capped off Samardzija’s third start of the year in which he failed to log five innings, but it was erratic command throughout his outing that provided more cause for concern.
“He went on the DL so he hadn’t been 100 percent,” Bochy said of Samardzija, who suffered a pectoral strain at the end of spring training. “He’s still finding it right now. He’s not where he’s going to be and that was part of the reason why I didn’t want to leave him out there.”
Samardzija walked a season-high five Astros and a year after he posted a career-best 6.41 strikeout-to-walk ratio, the right-hander has issued 23 free passes while racking up just 25 strikeouts.
“As a whole we gave up too many free passes,” Samardzija said. “You look back on it and you’re just making yourself work in situations when you might not have to.”
For the second time this month, the Giants have now cycled through a full turn of the rotation without having a pitcher log a quality start.
The Giants did put Verlander in an early hole after leadoff hitter Gorkys Hernandez slugged a triple over Kemp’s head to start the fourth. A Buster Posey sacrifice fly plated the Giants center fielder, who has emerged as the most consistent outfielder on the team in recent weeks.
Hernandez bumped his batting average up to .280 and helped raise Verlander’s pitch count early in the game with a nine-pitch at-bat in the first inning. Since June 1, 2017, Hernandez is hitting .290 and he offers the Giants the most range in center field of any player on the roster.
“I just try to keep it simple and not do too much,” Hernandez said. “The last couple of games I’ve hit leadoff and my plan is to be on base. When I’m on base, we have a chance to score.”
With Austin Jackson better-suited to start against left-handed pitchers and Gregor Blanco hitting just .197 in the month of May, Hernandez figures to continue playing in center field when the Giants face right-handed starters.
“He’s playing well, isn’t he?” Bochy said. “He’s swinging the bat well and he made a nice play out there defensively. A solid game for him against tough pitching.”
Hernandez fared better at the plate and in the field than Andrew McCutchen did Wednesday, as McCutchen struck out in his first three plate at-bats and dropped a flyball that led to the Astros first run.
With two outs and a runner on first in the fourth, McCutchen ran under a Yuli Gurriel flyball that would have ended the inning and missed it. Shortstop Carlos Correa scored from first base to tie the game and in the next frame, Samardzija unraveled.
“I missed it,” McCutchen said. “Plain and simple.”
In a six-inning stint against the Giants Wednesday, Verlander collected his first career win over San Francisco. The only other time he faced the club in a regular season contest came back in 2008, when Tim Lincecum outdueled Verlander in a 8-6 Giants win that featured home runs from Fred Lewis and John Bowker.
