SAN FRANCISCO – Cubs left-hander Matthew Boyd made the long walk to the back of the mound as the Oracle Park lights flashed above him, celebrating Giants star Matt Chapman’s two-run homer.
“The fastball to Chapman, he was able to get on top of it,” Boyd said after the Cubs’ 5-2 loss Tuesday to the Giants. “Probably would have liked it maybe a few inches higher, but he was on it. So hats off to him. And unfortunately, that was the difference in the game there.”
That long ball spelled the end of Boyd’s start. He’d given up five runs in 5 ⅓ innings, tied for a season-high earned runs allowed.
In an All-Star season, during which Boyd has recorded a Cubs-rotation-leading 2.82 ERA, he’s hit a rare rough patch in his last two starts. This is the first time all season that Boyd has allowed four or more runs in back-to-back outings.
“Nothing stood out [Tuesday night], necessarily,” manager Craig Counsell said. “He made some pitches. The walk to [Wilmer] Flores is maybe the only, ‘Man.’ Other than that, it was kind of a baseball game that they hit a couple of his good pitches.”
Boyd was throwing opposite Giants starting pitcher Justin Verlander, who was a veteran with the Tigers early in Boyd’s career in Detroit. The former teammates were neck-in-neck for five innings.
Boyd surrendered a solo homer to Flores in the second inning. And the Cubs tied it up against Verlander with a one-out double from Ian Happ and an RBI single from Matt Shaw.
Then with two outs in the top of the fifth inning, Pete Crow-Armstrong used his speed to will another run-scoring opportunity into existence. He hit a blooper into shallow left-center field and legged out a double when left fielder Heliot Ramos slid past it.
Crow-Armstrong’s hustle paid off when Carson Kelly hit an opposite-field line drive to score him the next at-bat. The Cubs took a brief 2-1 lead.
The Giants, however, stormed back in the bottom half of the inning. Luis Matos led off with a double off the out-of-town scoreboard on the tall right-field wall. Then Ramos drove a first-pitch changeup into the left-field corner for a game-tying RBI double.
“I threw it down and in; I was trying to throw it down and away,” Boyd said. “With the way he swings, If I put that on the outer half, it’s probably a little weaker. When it’s down and in, and it gives him a chance to do exactly what he did, hook it down the line.”
Next up, Rafael Devers delivered the go-ahead hit, a Texas-leaguer just out of diving shortstop Dansby Swanson’s reach.
Boyd got out of the inning without further incident. But in the sixth, he issued a one-out walk to Flores and threw a fastball to the top of the strike zone against Chapman, who was ready for it.
Verlander recorded five strikeouts against the Cubs, moving out of a tie with Walter Johnson (3,515 strikeouts) for No. 9 on the all-time strikeouts list (3,320), according to record keeping by the Elias Sports Bureau.
“Justin has just had a huge impact on my career,” Boyd said. “Those first three years that I got to be around him in Detroit, I got to watch a Hall of Famer go about his business every five days, and I got to watch what he did in between starts, and how he prepared. He took me under his wing, and he helped me out a ton. And so it’s really cool to see him continue to climb that list.