‘Battle-tested’ Giants ready to open series against Marlins

After hosting a pair of American League opponents, the San Francisco Giants open another three-game home series against the Miami Marlins on Tuesday night.

Having begun a nine-game homestand with three one-run affairs over six outings, the Giants began the week first in the majors in one-run wins.

A weary team got Monday off, a day after getting to experience what has been a rarity this season — a win by more than a single run in a 9-5 triumph over the Boston Red Sox. The Giants’ 19 one-run wins were four more than any other team through Sunday’s games.

“It’s not just the last inning. It seems like every game comes down to the last pitch,” Giants manager Bob Melvin noted. “We’re battle-tested. This, going forward, has to be good for us.

“It’s not like we panic in these games. With the bullpen doing what they do, we always feel like we have a really good chance to win them. It would be nice to win by three or four runs and not have to have a closer in the game every time.

“But it’s going to be good for us down the road.”

Coming off a nine-game stretch in which they had to deal with the Los Angeles Dodgers, Cleveland Guardians and Red Sox, the Giants now see the other end of the standings spectrum in the Marlins and Chicago White Sox for six contests this week.

The Marlins series is the rematch of a three-game road set bridging May and June in which no game was decided by more than two runs. In fact, there was a total of just nine runs scored in the series, with the Giants winning 2-0 and 4-2 to sandwich a 1-0 defeat.

Marlins right-hander Cal Quantrill (3-7, 5.68 ERA) will open this series for Miami as he did in the previous meeting. He was the hard-luck loser in the 2-0 Giants win on May 30, allowing just two runs with a season-high seven strikeouts in five innings.

The loss was the Stanford product’s first defeat in seven career starts against the Giants. He’s gone 3-1 with a 3.13 ERA in those games, only one of which has been in San Francisco, where he pitched Cleveland to a 3-1 win in 2023.

While Quantrill attempts to remain without a loss at Oracle Park, veteran Justin Verlander (0-4, 4.45 ERA) will once again attempt to win for the first time anywhere as a member of the Giants.

Verlander, who will be making his eighth home start of the season, has never lost to the Marlins in his career, going 2-0 with a 2.63 ERA in four starts.

He will see a Miami team coming off a 2-1 series win at home over the Atlanta Braves.

With three wins in seven games against the Philadelphia Phillies and Braves following three straight victories at Washington, Marlins manager Clayton McCullough believes his club is playing good ball on the eve of a six-game Western swing.

“Always nice to win a series, especially at home, and particularly when you feel like you know you’ve played well enough to win,” he assured. “Good to get one (Sunday), win the series before we head out west.”

–Field Level Media