Another concerning Jeff Samardzija start dooms Giants at Dodger Stadium

With a fastball that hovers around 90 miles per hour and a slider that isn’t missing bats, Jeff Samardzija’s margin for error is razor thin.

The veteran Giants pitcher needs everything to go right to give his club a chance to win, and in his first three starts this season, a blister on Samardzija’s right hand has prevented him from throwing his favorite pitch, the splitter.

The results have been hideous.

Samardzija allowed three home runs in a game for the seventh time in his Giants career and San Francisco lost for the fifth time in six games with a 7-2 blowout defeat against the Dodgers on Friday.

Dodgers sluggers Mookie Betts, Max Muncy and Will Smith all took Samardzija deep on Friday, increasing his ERA to 9.88 after he entered with a 9.31 mark.

“(Samardzija) is a pitcher who’s going to rely on location,” Kapler said. “Especially when you’re working with…It’s just important for you to find the corners of the plate and locate all of your pitches and land all of your pitches for strikes. If you’re able to do that, you’re going to have an opportunity to beat teams, but right now he’s not been able to do that.”

The low point of Samardzija’s night came in the bottom of the fifth against the Dodgers after he walked Cody Bellinger and hit Justin Turner to open the frame. With Kiké Hernández at the plate, Samardzija threw a pitch that appeared to graze off the batter’s front elbow.

Home plate umpire Jim Reynolds ordered Hernández to take first base with a hit by pitch, but Hernández made an unusual plea to Reynolds to let him stay in the batter’s box so he could take his hacks. The Giants wanted to see Hernández hit, too, so they asked for a review.

MLB’s replay crew ended up sticking with the call on the field. With reliever Sam Selman finally warm in the visiting bullpen, the Giants could no longer stick with the man on the mound.

At 35, Samardzija is playing out the final season of a five-year, $90 million contract he signed prior to the 2016 season. The end of his road with the Giants is approaching, but hitters across the National and American League West divisions have made his swan song with the club painful.

At the outset of the season, the Giants knew a Dodgers lineup loaded with left-handed power-hitters represented a brutal matchup for Samardzija, who must paint the corners and keep hitters off balance to succeed. Manager Gabe Kapler didn’t use the right-hander in the Giants’ first four-game set in Los Angeles, preferring to give Samardzija a chance to make two starts at Oracle Park.

In a pair of discouraging Giants losses, Samardzija gave up 11 hits over 9 2/3 innings while only striking out two.

In this turn through the rotation, Kapler and the Giants had no choice but to let Samardzija face the Dodgers. With his splitter still on the shelf, Los Angeles hammered him.

“You need to go out there and have your best stuff against those guys and today wasn’t it,” Samardzija said.

Samardzija did escape even greater trouble after he induced three straight popups following a Betts double in the bottom of the first, but by the time the Dodgers’ $365 million star came to the plate again and homered to left field, the Giants’ starter was fading.

With an elite fastball spin rate and a solid splitter, Samardzija was the Giants’ best starter in a 2019 season in which the team won 77 games. He had recovered from a shoulder injury that limited him to 10 outings in 2018 and appeared to be enjoying his transformation from a hard-throwing rookie reliever with the Cubs in 2008 to a soft-tossing, wily veteran.

Samardzija showed the wisdom required to get skilled hitters out at a later stage in his career, but in three starts this season, he hasn’t had the ability to execute. He’s now allowed six home runs while striking out just five batters, raising concerns about whether the Giants can continue to keep him in the rotation if he’s not healthy enough to grip all of his pitches.

“Too many times we’re getting to these 0-2, 1-2 counts and battling on for too long,” Samardzija said. “We need to be sure when we get them in the hole, we finish them. When you give these big league hitters these opportunities, they’re going to take advantage of them.”

Even if Samardzija had pitched well on Friday, the Giants didn’t offer their starter much help. The lineup managed one run against Dodgers starter Julio Urías and left fielder Darin Ruf cost the Giants the eventual go-ahead run by misplaying a ball in left field in the third inning.

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