SF Giants: Carlos Rodón's 11-strikeout outing falls short in 4-2 loss to Cubs
The SF Giants dropped their fifth-straight game, losing to the Chicago Cubs 4-2. The Giants struggling offense barely managed a rally against Cubs starter Drew Smyly. Despite starting ace Carlos Rodón, San Francisco fell behind early and could not dig themselves out of the hole.
Former Giants pitcher Drew Smyly was fantastic for the Cubs. The 33-year-old southpaw has had a resurgent campaign this year in Chicago but had his best outing of the year on Friday. Smyly relies almost entirely on two pitches: a sinker that sits between 90-94 mph and a nasty curveball. He oscillated between both pitches through seven shutout innings, keeping Giants hitters off balance while racking up 23 swinging strikes and eight strikeouts.
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On the other side of the diamond, Rodón racked up 11 strikeouts over his 5.1 innings of work against the Cubs. It was the fourth time in his last five outings that Rodón has struck out at least ten hitters. In fact, Rodón broke a pair of single-season franchise strikeout records over the course of his outing.
Normally, that should have been enough to get the win. Rodón surrendered just three hits and a walk, but Yan Gomes turned a 3-2 slider into a two-run homer in the bottom of the second inning, and that blemish was enough to hand Rodón the loss.
Even on the losing side of things, Rodón continued making a strong case for Giants president of baseball operations Farhan Zaidi to try to keep him in San Francisco beyond this season. It will be costly to sign Rodón to an extension, but he looks worth every penny right now.
Yunior Marte replaced Rodón with one out and nobody on in the bottom of the sixth inning. Marte eventually retired the side, but not before allowing another two-run blast, this time to Cubs infielder Nico Hoerner, that extended Chicago's lead to 4-0.
Smyly surrendered a double to David Villar in the second inning and another couple of walks, but it was not until Austin Dean-who was called up earlier in the day-reached base on an error to lead off the eighth inning that the Giants offense was able to build a scoring rally.
Cubs manager David Ross pulled Smyly after Dean reached base, turning to righty Manuel Rodríguez. However, Rodríguez walked the bases loaded and surrendered a two-out double to Evan Longoria that brought the Giants within a pair. Ross made his second pitching change of the inning, bringing in Brandon Hughes to face Thairo Estrada with the tying run in scoring position. Estrada worked a full count but struck out swinging on a slider in the dirt to end the rally.
Giants relievers Jarlín García and Zack Littell each tag teamed through the seventh and eighth inning to prevent the Cubs from adding any late-game insurance runs, but Hughes worked around a two-out single by Dean in the ninth, recording his fourth save of the season.
The Giants have now erased their gains in the standings from last weekend's four-game winning streak. They have fallen to 65-73 and are 10.5 games back of the Phillies for the final wild-card spot. They are also now a game behind the Diamondbacks for third place in the NL West.
The SF Giants will look to get back on track tomorrow, taking on the Cubs once again with first pitch scheduled for 11:20 AM Pacific.
