Photo credit: @LeopoldusEsq

By Jeremy Harness

The Giants’ up-and-down season continues.

They were facing an uphill battle from the very beginning, since they were going up against Justin Verlander, the man who lifted the Houston Astros to their first-ever World Series title last October.

It didn’t get much better for the Giants on Wednesday, as they fell to the Verlander-led Astros, 4-1, inside of Minute Maid Park. The star right-hander went six strong innings and surrendered only a run on three hits in the process.

He walked only one and struck out nine batters, as he improved his 2018 mark to 6-2 with an eye-popping ERS of 1.08.

Jeff Samardzija continues to struggle to stay in the game as he makes his way back from a pectoral strain he suffered at the start of the season. He failed yet again to reach five full innings – he went only 4 2/3 innings on Wednesday.

He actually matched Verlander for four innings, as the two hurlers put zeroes on the board for the first three frames before the Giants got a run off Verlander in the fourth. Houston evened things up in the bottom half of the inning, when Andrew McCutchen committed a fielding error that allowed a run to score.

The wheels came off for Samardzija in the fifth, when George Springer – who also came up huge for the Astros in the World Series – smashed a two-run homer over the short porch in left field. Carlos Correa followed that up with a run-scoring single to give Houston a three-run advantage that they would not relinquish.

Gorkys Hernandez and Brandon Belt each had two hits for the Giants, while Correa and Springer also had a pair of hits for Houston.

The Giants get a much-needed day off before taking on the Cubs for a three-game series starting Friday at 11:20 am PST.