The Giants, the club that loves its platoon splits, started right-handers Austin Slater, Wilmer Flores and Luis Matos against a three-time Cy Young Award and former MVP.
Injuries to key position players put the Giants in a poor matchup, and they couldn’t make up for it.
Justin Verlander, the Mets’ 40-year-old ace, carved up San Francisco. He allowed one unearned run in seven impressive innings, giving up just hits and striking out six.
The Giants (36-47) thinned by the absences of Michael Conforto, LaMonte Wade Jr., Mike Yastrzemski and Mitch Haniger, couldn’t match up with Verlander in a 4-1 loss. By splitting the opening two games of the series at Citi Field, the Sunday Night Baseball finale becomes a rubber match.
If the Mets, who went 7-19 in June, continue to spiral, perhaps a team with a need for a top-line starter who can take the ball in a playoff series might pay the Mets a deadline call about Verlander.
Anthony DeSclafani, San Francisco’s starter, served up a trio of solo home runs in the third inning. All three tanks traveled over 400 feet and would’ve cleared the fence in all 30 ballparks.
In other words: DeSclafani was getting shelled. He was lucky for all three of them to come with no runners on base.
First, rookie catcher Francisco Alvarez jumped on a first-pitch fastball for the opening run of the game. His 13th homer of the year as the farthest hit ball of the afternoon at 416 feet.
Two batters later, Brandon Nimmo worked a 2-2 count before launching a homer into the second deck in right field. DeSclafani appeared upset with a borderline call that didn’t go his way, but he’d also gotten several strikes stolen by Patrick Bailey’s framing acumen.
Then to go back-to-back, Francisco Lindor continued his ownership of DeSclafani. He parked a full count fastball out to right. His exit velocity was 103.5 mph — a poke compared to the previous two that neared 112 mph.
The homer made Lindor 9-for-17 with four home runs lifetime against DeSclafani.
As Sean Manaea, pitching in his second straight game, allowed another run, Verlander breezed through SF’s order. He retired 10 straight batters at one point and located his offspeed pitches in the zone to work efficiently.
Verlander caught Joc Pederson looking three times and needed just 73 pitches through six scoreless, walkless innings.
The first time last year’s Cy Young winner broke a sweat was in the seventh, when first baseman Pete Alonso made his second head-scratching error in as many games.
The Giants have 14 wins after trailing by multiple runs this season, already more comebacks than they completed last year. Brandon Crawford, who has hit .400 with runners in scoring position, stepped up with two out and two on. He was the game-tying run.
But after hooking a line drive just foul down the first base line, Crawford struck out on Verlander’s 101st pitch.
So many times this season, including Friday night’s Bailey Special, the Giants have stunned teams with late comebacks. They refuse to be knocked out of games. But Verlander prevented them from adding more magic.