Ah, the sun! Giver of life, provider of solar energy, burner of skin, mascot of Arizona professional basketball, source of both photosynthesis and melanomas. The sun giveth, and Wednesday afternoon in San Francisco, the sun tooketh away a victory for the home tea,m.
Victor Bericoto delivered the San Francisco Giants’ first run with an RBI single in the first inning. He was also responsible for the Houston Astros’ first run when he lost a Dalton Varsho fly ball in the sun in the 7th inning, in a game the Giants would go on to lose, 2-1.
It was a game that came down to some outfield fly balls. Varsho’s sky-high flyout turned into a two-base error, two batters after Yordan Alvarez missed a home run by a few feet that turned into a long single. Christian Koss got all of a ball in the 9th, at least as much of the ball as Koss can get, and it fell short on the warning track for a long out.
Oracle Park robbed Taylor Trammell of a home run off Keaton Winn (2-3) leading off the 8th inning. One pitch later, Nick Allen drove him in with a sacrifice fly, which was enough for the win when the last 10 Giants who went to the plate made outs.
Bericoto ended up as the goat, but the Giants also missed a chance to erase the eventual tying run one batter earlier when Willy Adames’ back seized up at the worst possible moment. On a textbook double play ball, Adames threw weakly to second base and Isaac Paredes beat the throw at first. Adames would leave the game after fouling out in the bottom of the 7th, and appears headed for the injured list.
Adrian Houser started his first game since June 16 and looked hungry for the chance to get back in the rotation. He pitched three perfect innings before the first Astro reached base, when Jeremy Pena doubled to lead off the 4th inning. After a walk to Alvarez, Hauser induced a 5-4-3 double play out of Paredes.
Houser allowed only three Astros to reach base in six innings, striking out five and walking one. When Allen singled and got bunted to second, the Giants turned one of the most unusual double plays of the season. Willy Adames fielded Pena’s grounder and threw to Koss at third and Allen unwisely signaled Pena to keep running. Koss ran Allen to Basabe’s tag, then hustled to second base to tag out Pena. Score that 6-5-4-5.
That ended Houser’s afternoon, but the bullpen and the defense couldn’t keep the Astros off the board. And the offense couldn’t do anything off a half-dozen Astros relievers who followed opener Bryan King, who left after walking his second batter with two outs in the first inning. Bericoto followed with an RBI hit off Enyel De Los Santos and Drew Cavanaugh walked to load the bases, but Basabe fouled out to end the threat.
The Giants would load the bases again in the second inning off Tatsuya Imai, who stabilized the game with three innings of work out of the pen. Rafael Devers couldn’t capitalize with three ducks on the pond, grounding out to second to end the inning.
After that, only three Giants would reach base the rest of the game. Imai struck out Eldridge with two on and two out in the 4th. Koss singled, then stole second when former Giant and Wednesday’s winning pitcher Steven Okert (6-1) entered the game, only to be stranded when Jung Hoo Lee grounded out.
The Giants were quite close to sweeping the Astros. Instead, they lost the series entirely. Josh Hader picked up his 17th save while getting a scare from Koss and getting Andrew Knizner to foul out in his first plate appearance of 2026. On what could have been an encouraging day for the remaining uninjured and untraded Giants, they picked up their 71st defeat instead.
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