Straily nearly goes distance in gem as Marlins roll past Giants

Through eight innings on Friday night at AT&T Park, Dan Straily had shut out the Giants on three hits while throwing 105 pitches.

Before he took the mound for the ninth inning, Straily had to make one more pitch: to manager Don Mattingly.

“I came in and he had the handshake look on his face,” Straily said after the Marlins’ 6-1 victory. “I was trying to tell him, ‘Let me just go for this. … Obviously, if it drags out, come get me, but let me go out there and try to get this.’ ”

Mattingly consented, and Straily had a chance for the first complete game of his big-league career that began in 2012. Straily had to settle for the longest outing of his career,  8 1/3 innings. With one out in the ninth, Denard Span ended Straily’s shutout and complete-game bids by launching a “Splash Hit” into McCovey Cove beyond the right-field wall.

“It sucked, and it was fun,” Straily said about pitching in the ninth inning. “I just wanted to finish it. If you can have a bitter taste in your mouth after that outing I just had, it’s that right there.”

Friday night’s outing marked Straily’s fifth consecutive solid performance. In those five starts, the right-hander has allowed seven earned runs in  31 2/3 innings for a 1.99 ERA.

Against the Giants, he struck out three and walked none. In his past eight starts, Straily has issued all of five free passes and no more than one in any game.

“I think it’s really kind of who he is,” Mattingly said. “… He’s the one guy for us that really throws the ball where he wants.”

You wouldn’t have figured Straily (7-4) would have even had a chance at a complete game after his first batter. Span had an 11-pitch at-bat before grounding out to second.

Said Mattingly: “ ‘You’re thinking, OK, this is going to be one of those where they’re going to run his pitch count up,’ but after that first inning, he seemed to be able to get a lot more easy outs.”

Straily spent his first  2 1/2 big-league seasons across the Bay with the Athletics, so he’s familiar with how the heavy marine air at night often keeps would-be home runs in the ballpark.

And though Friday night was unseasonably warm (72 degrees at first pitch), that takes little away from what Giancarlo Stanton did in the first inning. He jolted a Matt Moore pitch to right for a two-run homer.

Stanton became the first right-handed hitter to clear the 25-foot-high, right-field wall since the Giants’ Hunter Pence did it on July 10, 2015.

“That’s just impressive,” Straily said of Stanton’s feat. “There are a lot of balls that guy hits, even some of them for outs, and you’re just like, ‘That’s the hardest ball I’ve ever seen hit.’

“And then he hits the next one and you’re like, ‘No, that’s the hardest ball I’ve ever seen hit.’ ”

This story was originally published July 8, 2017 at 7:10 PM with the headline "Straily nearly goes distance in gem as Marlins roll past Giants."