Giants Make History Behind Samardzija's Masterful Start

With the way the starting rotation has pitched over the last week and a half, it was only appropriate that the San Francisco Giants finish off their seven-game road stand with a win via a good old fashioned pitcher's duel in the pitcher's dream of Petco Park, the AT&T Park of Southern California.

Following Madison Bumgarner and Johnny Cueto's back-to-back one-run complete games, Jeff Samardzija had the best start of the bunch by a long shot.

While Samardzija didn't throw a complete game like his counterpart, his outing featured eight strikeouts over eight innings and a stretch in which he retired nineteen batters in a row from the second inning with two outs. The big right-hander started his outing with his pitches up in the strike zone and out over the middle of the plate, and his velocity down in the low-90s, but as the game wore on, Samardzija improved, bringing the ball down and amping his pitches up to the mid-90s.

By cranking up the velocity, his repertoire was much more effective, as he was able to get late and sharp bite on his cutter, slider, and splitter, which allowed him to rack up the strikeouts.

The Shark was as efficient with his pitches as he was dominant with them, throwing 95 through seven innings and 105 through eight innings. Even in the late innings, Samardzija's pitches were in the mid-90s.

Although Samardzija was masterful and his pitch count wasn't too high through eight innings, Bruce Bochy denied his chance at a complete game to get the bullpen, specifically Santiago Casilla, work after the unit as a whole had not pitched since last Sunday.

Samardzija has also thrown a major-league leading 970 pitches this season, which added to the reasoning of letting him rest the ninth. When everything was all said and done, Samardzija lowered his ERA on the season to 2.66.

Casilla ran into a little bit of trouble in the ninth after he allowed a lead-off single to Jon Jay, but he worked out of it by striking out Melvin Upton Jr. and Matt Kemp, getting Brett Wallace to line out for his tenth save of the year. Joe Panik saved Casilla, diving to deny Wallace of a hit.

On the other side of the ball, the offense found life in a major way after only scoring two runs of support for Cueto in his gem last night.

Panik, who came into the game hitless in his last 15 at-bats, burst out of his slump in grand fashion, four hits. His hits weren't cheapies either, as Panik roped the ball hard.

Panik's middle-infield partner, Brandon Crawford, had a day of his own at the plate, racking up two hits, including a solo shot in the seventh, and Buster Posey and Hunter Pence, the meat and potatoes of San Francisco's lineup, had a hit and an RBI apiece. Crawford's home run gave him his 16th RBI in his last 16 games.

With tonight's win, the Giants officially went undefeated in a seven-game road stand for the first time since 1913, back in the prime of New York Giant Hall-of-Famer Christy Matthewson.

The Giants look to take every bit of momentum into tomorrow's series opener against the mighty Chicago Cubs, who come into this series with a 3-5 record in their last eight games. The Cubs currently have the best record in baseball at 28 and 11.

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