The Giants leaned on a wave of young talent Tuesday night, and it was enough to take down the Astros 4-1 at Oracle Park.
That youth movement showed up everywhere. Carson Whisenhunt steadied himself after a shaky start to earn his third win of the season.
Bryce Eldridge supplied the biggest swing of the night with his 12th home run. Drew Cavanaugh chipped in two hits, an RBI and his first career steal.
Drew Gilbert added an RBI and a walk. Christian Koss drove in a run, and Carson Seymour finished the job with two scoreless innings out of the bullpen.
For a club that got much younger after last week’s trade deadline, it was the kind of box score that fit the moment. Bryce Eldridge even joked the roster looked like the “San Francisco River Kitties,” a nod to the team’s Triple-A affiliate. On this night, that didn’t feel like a punch line so much as a preview.
Eldridge’s homer was the loudest moment of the game: a solo blast to the opposite field that carried 423 feet and cleared the left-center field fence on a cold San Francisco night with room to spare. He entered play in August struggling at .233/.281/.267 without a homer, but this was the sort of swing that can change the temperature around a hitter in a hurry.
Whisenhunt’s outing followed a different script. He battled command early, needing 55 pitches to get through his first two innings, and it looked for a moment like his night could end quickly. Instead, he settled in and became far more efficient, needing just 12 pitches in both the third and fifth innings and only five in the fourth.
In the end, he allowed one run over 5 2/3 innings with two strikeouts and three walks, coming one out shy of the first six-inning start of his career. After he walked a batter with two outs in the sixth, Seymour came in and struck out the final hitter to finish the frame.
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