Giants Prevail Over Reds Despite Another Pitcher Injury

Aug 26, 2026 | 2025 Season, Latest Post

by
Greek Giant

To show you how strange this year has been for the Giants bullpen last night Carson Seymour was the tenth pitcher to record a save this season. In the Giants 3-1 victory over the Reds Rafael Devers went deep again, I mean Barry Bonds deep, for his 28th home run. He is, as Duane Kuiper mentioned, on a tear. Now for the bad news: for the second straight game a Giants starter left the game with an arm injury. This time it was Adrian Houser who exited after pitching 1 2/3 innings and allowing one hit, zero runs and recording three strikeouts.

The Giants scored two first-inning runs off Brady Singer in a very weird sequence of events. Singer threw the first pitch of the bottom of the first inning behind Drew Gilbert. The very next pitch hit Gilbert on the leg, also a fastball. Duane Kuiper insinuated that the two may have a history dating back to their SEC days when Singer starred for the Florida Gators and Gilbert played for the Volunteers of Tennessee. Who knows? What I do know is that Singer then walked Devers and then hit Lee with another fastball so maybe the righty was just plain wild and confused?! That loaded the bases with nobody out and Giants catcher Drew Cavanaugh made Singer pay with a single up the middle through a drawn-in infield to score two runs. That came with one out. It was the hit of the game and it returned the pain Singer inflicted on the Giants.

Nate Furman had his first Major League hit, a single in the bottom of the third inning.

After Houser’s exit the Giants much-maligned bullpen allowed only a single run, a homer to right off the bat of Sal Stewart from a pitch by Carson Seymour in the ninth inning. Until that point and right after the Giants pitchers were excellent, allowing zero runs and only two hits. The relief corps consisted of Molina, Hentges and Harris before Seymour’s save.

The Highlights

The Giants Are Hit Hard With Injuries

Houser exited Tuesday night’s fame Houser started shaking and flexing his right arm after striking out Matt McClain swinging on a 94.5 mph fastball and after throwing another 93.6 mph heater to Héctor Rodríguez, drawing a mound visit from catcher Drew Cavanaugh. He was shaking his harm and looked very uncomfortable, if not downright disgusted.

Assistant athletic trainer Ryo Watanabe and manager Tony Vitello also ran out to the mound from the dugout to check on their pitcher who subsequently walked off the field after throwing only 26 pitches over 1 2/3 scoreless innings. Houser dealt with a similar issue in 2022, when he missed close to two months with a right flexor strain. The Giants announced he will undergo an MRI exam on Wednesday.

“I was trying to gut through it and get through. “It’s been barking a little bit. But it kind of got to the point where I was just feeling it every time. We wanted to play it safe. Hopefully, everything is good and it’s just a minor setback.”

-Adrian Houser

This injury took place one night after Carson Whisenhunt left his start in the Giants victory on Monday night, also over the Reds. Whisenhunt suiffered a torn ulnar collateral ligament in his left elbow. He was scheduled to meet with team doctors on Tuesday evening to determine his next steps, though he seems likely to join fellow young starters Hayden Birdsong and Trevor McDonald in needing season-ending Tommy John surgery this year.

The Giants also put out a concerning update on shortstop Willy Adames, who was diagnosed with a moderate UCL sprain in his left (non-throwing) elbow after sliding awkwardly into home plate against the Red Sox on Sunday. Adames is in the process of seeking out a second opinion, but it’s possible that surgery could be on the table for him, as well. This is a bad slew of injuries for our San Franciscans and you never want them to happen. But, I will say this: it’s not like the injuries are going to take the Giants out of contention. We will get to see more youngsters and hopefully one or two of them will emerge into quality players to replace all those suddenly open spots on the roster.

A Word About All Those Arm Injuries to Pitchers

It’s no secret that today’s baseball players are stronger and faster than ever. Last night Sal Stewart hit the aforementioned home run to right field over the Giants Barry Bonds Wall. Stewart is a powerful hitter who took a center-cut fastball and went opposite field. I have written many times before that for those of us who have been watching baseball since the 1970s, the opposite-field homer is a new phenomenon. It was an extremely rare site back in the day. My point is that combined with the harder velocity of pitchers, such feats are now commonplace. Today’s pitchers routinely throw upper nineties and also have another thing in common: the frequency with which they have serious arm injuries that require surgery. Arm surgeries up through the 1990s and even early 2000’s were a very rare occurrence with pitchers for a variety of reasons. The first of which is that pitchers in those days never really lifted any weights and did not work on their power as much as on their stamina and flexibility. The emphasis on the art of pitching was on endurance and preventing runs, not striking out hitters. We all know that the complete game, with the emphasis on bullpens and the reduced ability of pitchers to maintain their velocity and their stamina mean that the complete game is practically a disappearing feat. It’s a tragic, terrible development for the game of baseball. This prioritization of velocity and power leads to all the arm injuries and lost games, shortened careers and generally terrible things for both players and their teams. It is a mystery to me why teams don’t forbid pitchers from lifting weights, why they don’t teach them the importance of flexibility, pace and stamina. It’s time for a major revolution in what it means to be a starting pitcher and the smarter, wiser organizations will understand this at some point.

The irony is that even though today’s pitchers throw harder than ever, they are not better pitchers than those from the previous eras. When comparing their ERAs, their won-loss records and other stats/career accomplishments, we can see that power/velocity doe not guarantee better baseball success. It should be obvious to those running teams but these arm injuries continue to happen. Perhaps it is a matter of training? Of in-season regimen? It is an issue that should be a priority for the Giants and those concerned with preventing all those lost arms.

Today’s Game

The Giants complete their three-game series against the Reds with a day game at 12:35 PM at Willie Mays Field with facing lefty Nick Lodolo (3-3, 5.04 ERA) facing Landen Roupp (7-13, 4.34 ERA).