Matt Cain’s season debut marred by 5–4 loss as San Francisco Giants swept by Marlins

Jul 2, 2015; Miami, FL, USA; San Francisco Giants starting pitcher Matt Cain (18) delivers a pitch again the Miami Marlins during the fifth inning at Marlins Park. Mandatory Credit: Steve Mitchell-USA TODAY Sports

By the time Thursday’s game rolled around, the Giants had already lost the series. Thursday’s game was supposed to be payback. Not everyone got the memo.

Thursday also marked the Return of a Man Called Horse. Remember that movie? No? Cult classic, released mid-70’s, starred Richard Harris. Never mind, it has nothing to do with baseball–it’s just my way of avoiding the issue.

The issue? The Giants got swept by the Marlins. Can you picture fish using brooms…never mind, sorry, “avoiding” again.

Matt Cain, the “horse”made his first big league start in almost a year. I had such high hopes for our one-time ace, World Series champion. He started off pretty solid and pitched a good game through the first four innings.

The fifth inning proved to be his undoing: he gave up a walk, two base hits and two home runs, taking the Giants comfortable two run lead and giving it to the Marlins. One of the long balls was hit by the Marlins pitcher to start the inning.

At the end of his outing, this is how Cain’s line looked: in five innings pitched, he gave up five runs (two were home runs) on seven hits and four walks. He struck out two.

The Marlins pitcher, Jose Fernandez, won this debutant’s ball–he was also making his first start in the majors this season after spending a year recuperating from Tommy John surgery.

The Giants gave the Marlins pitcher a little trouble from the beginning. In the first inning they scored runs “Giants–style” including Gregor Blanco’s base hit that scored on Buster Posey’s sac fly.

Joe Panik hit a double and scored on Brandon Belt’s base hit, which Kuip described as “maybe the ugliest hit of the day” Kruk took piled on: “maybe the month, including last month”…”but it’s a two-out knock that produces an RBI…”

Blanco scored again when he led off the fifth with a solo home run and Buster led off the eighth with another home run. The final score was: Giants 4, Marlins 5

Through the entire series the Marlins have used one tool pretty effectively against the Giants. It’s called a three run home run and the Marlins hit one in each game. Dee Gordon proved it could be done inside the park in Tuesdays game, the Marlins first baseman walked off with it in Wednesday’s game,

He hit one again Thursday. Where the heck is Michael Morse?