San Francisco Giants 3 Up, 3 Down: Finished with Frustrating Fish
The San Francisco Giants are finally finished with the Miami Marlins, who continued to give them fits even as the Giants won the series.
3 UP
1 – Starting Rotation
As the season continues to wear on, Giants’ starting pitchers seem to be getting stronger. It started with rookie Andrew Suarez on Monday, as he pitched one of the best games of his young career in his second go-around against the Marlins. Over 6.1 innings, the lefty held Miami to two runs on five hits and a walk while matching his career-high with seven strikeouts.
Another rookie toed the rubber on Tuesday, with righty Dereck Rodriguez getting the call. He gave the Giants five solid innings, but ran into some trouble in the fourth. He allowed three runs and nearly gave back the entirety of a four-run lead, but finished the inning plus another to earn his second big league win.
In the finale, it was Derek Holland. He’s been the Giants most reliable starter in recent weeks, and kept up that momentum on Wednesday. He allowed three runs in six-plus innings (two of those runs scored after Holland had already departed), helping guide the Giants to the series win. Holland had some of his best stuff of the year, getting a season-high 17 swing-and-misses along the way. The Giants have sent Holland to the mound in the final game of a series five times, and have won all five times.
2 – Adding On
Over the course of the final two games, the Giants did a great job of adding on runs, putting some much-needed insurance on their leads. After the Marlins cut the lead to 4-3 on Tuesday, the Giants punched back with a pair of runs of their own to build the lead back up. A double each from Alen Hanson and Gorkys Hernandez got those insurance runs, and they held up for a 6-3 win.
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On Wednesday, an offensive explosion in the sixth inning got San Francisco on the board. Brandon Belt broke the shutout with a booming RBI double, then Mac Williamson put the Giants up 2-1 with a run-scoring fielder’s choice. Hunter Pence lashed an RBI single to right field, then Gorkys Hernandez put on the at-bat of the game. He battled Jose Urena for 14 pitches, then sent a two-run single to right field to open up a 5-1 lead.
The Giants added a sixth run in the eighth inning, when Pence dropped a single in over a drawn-in infield to score Hundley from third. That turned out to be the biggest run of the game, as Miami put on another comeback attempt in the ninth that ultimately fell a run shy.
3 – Done with Miami
Thank the Baseball Gods, the Giants are done with the Miami Marlins for the season. It wasn’t easy and the Giants lost the season series, but that’s one team that keeps giving them problems that they don’t have to play anymore.
The Giants took two of three from Miami in this series, giving them their first series win over Miami since August in 2016. It was another ugly series, definitely not one that should give people a lot of confidence about the team. But a series win is a series win, and the Giants need to pile up as many of those as they can.