Seventh-inning meltdown sends SF Giants to fourth straight loss in first game vs. Astros

HOUSTON — The Giants had won five of six when they headed for the high skies of Mexico City, but upon returning to sea level, they weren’t able to recapture their winning ways.

Another late-inning meltdown by their bullpen sent the Giants to their fourth straight loss, 7-3, in their first of three games against the defending World Series champion Houston Astros.

Here are a few observations.

Bullpen problems: The game was tied at 2 when the seventh inning started. By the time it was over, the Giants had cycled through two pitchers — young long relievers, not seasoned high-leverage arms — and trailed 7-2. It was just the latest in their bullpen’s late-inning troubles.

The Astros batted around, bringing 10 men to the plate, while scoring five against Sean Hjelle and Tristan Beck to blow a tied game wide open.

With five more Monday, Giants relievers have now allowed 70 runs this season in the seventh inning or later, second-most in the majors.

Why was it Hjelle and Beck, two pitchers who spent most of last season in Triple-A Sacramento’s rotation, in a tied game in the seventh inning?

The Giants’ bullpen was taxed after two games in Mexico City, and its current composition doesn’t allow for much leeway when their best single-inning arms are down. Between Hjelle, Beck and Jakob Junis, three of the Giants’ eight relievers are long men, when the typical major-league bullpen features one.

“We had almost the entire bullpen outside of Taylor Rogers, Hjelle and Beck, coming off the Mexico City series, all considered down,” Kapler said. “It’s been a tough go for Sean recently. He struggled to throw enough strikes to carry us through there. … We believe in Sean. We believe in Tristan Beck and everybody on our roster all the time. We want to give them as many opportunities to perform as possible.”

Joc Pederson, who contributed two of the Giants’ runs with a rocket homer to right field in the third inning, expanded on the challenges presented by the international series. Between his homer in the third and LaMonte Wade Jr.’s in the eighth, the Giants’ only hit was a Blake Sabol bunt single.

“That trip, hands down, was the hardest trip I’ve done in the big leagues,” Pederson said. “We had a four and a half hour flight to get there. We got in at 1 in the morning. We were at customs for two hours. We had an hour and a half bus ride. We get to the hotel at 4 in the morning, at altitude. Every bus ride to the stadium was an hour and 15 minutes. The game ended yesterday and after our bus left the field, it still took 4 hours to get in the air, and we got in the air at 12 o’clock again.

“Just that type of travel, I know it sounds like (complaining) and snobby and all that stuff, but when you’re in the big leagues, the travel schedule is very tough and they do a very professional job of getting you in and out of cities as soon as possible so your body can rest and recover. We just went through the grinder on that portion of it.”

Stripling and the slider: Making his second start in Alex Wood’s rotation spot, Ross Stripling turned in arguably his most effective outing of the season against a dangerous Astros order. Striking out five and walking none over five innings, Stripling held Houston to two runs, lowering his ERA to 6.10.

How’d he do it? With the help of a solid scouting report, apparently.

The Astros entered Monday as the majors’ fourth-worst team hitting sliders, according to FanGraphs, and Stripling served them a steady diet.

Stripling threw 73 pitches over his five innings, and sliders made up a substantially larger portion than any of his other four offerings (37%). That’s an outlier for a pitcher who has said his defining quality is the wide variety and relatively equal usage of his pitch mix. Of his five strikeouts, he used his slider to record three of them.

“Yeah, that was kind of the plan,” Stripling said. “Some of the righties were good on changeups, so I knew I was going to be breaking ball heavy today.”

Since surrendering six home runs in his first three outings (10 IP), Stripling hasn’t allowed any in his past three appearances (10⅔ IP).

“We can knock on wood, for sure,” Stripling said. “I would just say I’m crisper than where I was coming out of spring training. I didn’t give up a homer on my slider at all last season and I gave up two against the Yankees and I think I’ve given up another one since then. So the slider’s getting to where it needs to be.”

Dynamic Dubón: Mauricio Dubón, who told the San Francisco Chronicle that he had this series circled on his calendar, showed the Giants what they were missing after trading him to Houston last May. Using his speed and athleticism, two qualities the Giants don’t have much of, Dubón stole second after singling in his first at-bat, which put him in position to score on Jose Abreu’s 104.4-mph single that snuck past shortstop Thairo Estrada.

After scoring their first run, Dubón drove in the tying and go-ahead runs in his third and fourth at-bats and finished with three hits, two RBIs and two runs scored.

“Everyone in that situation wants to do really well,” said Joc Pederson, who contributed two of the Giants’ three runs with a third-inning homer to right. “I guess you’ve got to tip your hat to him. He had an unbelievable (game). He basically single-handedly beat us today.”

“Almost beat us himself, right?” echoed Stripling. “He scored the first run then knocked in the next two. Obviously he’s probably very motivated against his former team as we all are when we play our former teams. But he’s locked in.”

Houston turned the lineup over with a pair of two-out singles from its bottom two hitters in the fifth, bringing up Dubón in the leadoff spot. He laced a line drive into center field, driving in one to tie the score at 2 and ensuring Stripling would not factor in the decision. In the fateful seventh, Sean Hjelle served up a middle-middle sinker, which Dubón lined down the right field line to drive in Jake Meyers, whom Hjelle put on with a leadoff walk.

Filling in at second base for the injured Jose Altuve, Dubón recently texted Brandon Crawford to lament the end of his 20-game hit streak. But after a brief 0-for-8 stretch, he appears to getting started on another one against his former club.

Dubón didn’t pull any punches when asked what it meant to him afterward.

“It felt really good, honestly,” Dubón told reporters in the Houston clubhouse. “I was not treated the right way over there. … But with Dusty (Baker) here now, I’m in heaven.”