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San Francisco Giants Veteran Returns to Form with Latest Quality Start

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San Francisco Giants Veteran Returns to Form with Latest Quality Start


At the end of the 2024 campaign, it was evident that the San Francisco Giants needed reinforcements for their starting rotation. Not many believed those reinforcements would come in the form of a 42-year-old veteran.

Last year was the third in a string of rough years for the Giants. After winning 107 games in 2021, they had once again failed to finish above .500 for the third time in as many seasons.

The pitching staff was a big part of their struggles, with the rotation posting a 4.22 ERA in 2024, ranking 18th in MLB.

President of baseball operations Buster Posey is not one to sit around on his hands and wait for reinforcements, but instead chooses to go out and get the reinforcements himself. Over the offseason, he turned to a former colleague of his and signed future Hall of Famer Justin Verlander to a one-year, $15 million deal.

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Not many knew what to think of the pact. Verlander, 42, was coming off one of the worst years of his career, a campaign that saw him post a 5.48 ERA across only 90 1/3 innings in 17 starts. He had not struck out more batters than he had innings pitched since 2022, and the decline from age was finally starting to take its toll.

Across his first four starts in 2025, the signing looked abysmal. Verlander carried a 6.75 ERA across only 18 2/3 innings with 17 strikeouts. Clearly, the signing was for naught, and the rest of the year would just see Verlander making starts to improve ticket sales.

Well, that’s where things turned around. The veteran has made three starts since those first four outings, and all three of them have been quality starts. The 42-year-old has pitched to a 1.96 ERA in that time across 18 1/3 innings with 15 strikeouts.

Now, you can certainly point at two of the teams he has faced in those starts and remember just how bad they are (the Los Angeles Angels and Colorado Rockies), but the other team Verlander faced in that stretch is a legitimate World Series contender with a potent lineup in the Texas Rangers.

The days of Verlander competing for a Cy Young may be long gone. But if the old man can continue to put up quality starts the rest of the way, he will have San Francisco well positioned to win games and finish a year over .500 for the first time since 2021.

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Yankees top Giants 7-0 as robot umpire debuts

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Yankees top Giants 7-0 as robot umpire debuts



Aaron Judge went hitless on opening day for the first time and struck out four times for the first time since September 2024, but the New York Yankees still produced plenty of offense and beat San Francisco 7-0 Wednesday night in the debut of Giants manager Tony Vitello as the major league season began.

José Caballero drove in the go-ahead run with an RBI single in a five-run second and also lost the first challenge taken to Major League Baseball’s so-called robot umpire, unsuccessfully appealing a strike by Logan Webb in the fourth.

Max Fried (1-0) allowed two hits in 6 1/3 innings to became just the fifth Yankees pitcher since 1969 with at least 6 1/3 shutout innings on opening day, joining Catfish Hunter (1977), Ron Guidry (1980), Rick Rhoden (1988) and David Cone (1996). New York won an opener with a shutout on the road for the first time since 1967.

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Webb (0-1) started the fourth inning with a 90.7 mph sinker on the upper, inner corner that was called a strike by Bill Miller, a major league umpire since 1997. Caballero tapped his helmet, and the 12 Hawk-Eye cameras of the Automated Ball-Strike System upheld Miller’s decision in a graphic shown on the Oracle Park scoreboard.

Caballero singled in the second and Ryan McMahon followed with a two-run single before Austin Wells’ single prompted a mound visit for Webb. Trent Grisham hit a two-run triple and was checked by medical staff after a hard slide into third.

Judge was booed before the game and during each at-bat as he began his 11th big league season. The California native had been pursued by the Giants during free agency in 2022 but he ultimately chose the Yankees’ $360 million, nine-year contract offer.

Webb, a 15-game winner last season making his fifth start on opening day, was tagged for six earned runs — seven in all — and nine hits over five innings.

The 47-year-old Vitello made the big jump from coaching the University of Tennessee.

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The teams resum3 the series Friday afternoon, with RHP Cam Schlittler starting for New York opposite lefty Robbie Ray.

___

AP MLB: https://apnews.com/mlb



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1 dead in house fire in San Francisco’s Portola neighborhood

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1 dead in house fire in San Francisco’s Portola neighborhood


One person was found dead Tuesday night in a house fire in San Francisco’s Portola neighborhood.

The one-alarm fire occurred in the 500 block of Dwight Street and caused major damage to the interior of the home, the Fire Department said.

Firefighters extinguished the fire and remained on the scene checking for hidden fire in the walls and roof.

One person was declared deceased at the scene. The exact manner and cause of the person’s death will be determined by a medical examiner. The cause of the fire remains under investigation.

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Barricaded suspect in standoff with police in San Francisco’s Tenderloin neighborhood

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Barricaded suspect in standoff with police in San Francisco’s Tenderloin neighborhood



A person was barricaded inside a residence in San Francisco’s Tenderloin neighborhood on Tuesday afternoon in a standoff with officers, police said.

The San Francisco Police Department said the situation was happening at the Cadillac Hotel, a historic single-room occupancy building on Eddy Street between Jones and Leavenworth streets. Officers responded to a report of an assault at the hotel at about 2 p.m. and determined that the suspect was barricaded in one of the units, police said.

Crisis negotiators and other specialists also responded and were developing a plan for a peaceful resolution to the standoff, police said. An ambulance and paramedics were also standing by at the hotel.  

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Members of the public were asked to avoid the area. The San Francisco Fire Department said Eddy Street between Leavenworth and Jones was closed to traffic.

The Cadillac Hotel was built in 1907 and has been listed as a San Francisco Designated Landmark since 1985, becoming the first nonprofit single-room occupancy hotel west of the Mississippi. For decades, it also housed Newman’s Gym, one of the oldest boxing facilities in the U.S., where boxers such as Muhammad Ali, George Foreman, Sugar Ray Robinson, and Joe Louis trained.  

Today, the hotel provides supportive housing for approximately 160 low-income residents. 

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In 2015, the hotel became the site for The Tenderloin Museum.





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