But he had never pitched more than 115 innings in any year of his pitching life and was at more than 140 innings when he took the Oracle Park mound Monday night.
And the first batter he faced, Austin Slater, singled to match the Giants total hits in Abbott’s last game against them.
When the third hitter, Wilmer Flores, doubled home Slater, the Giants had their first run off Abbott.
It didn’t get any better for the 24-year-old left-hander as the Reds were shut down 4-1.
Abbott, fighting command and control, needed 85 pitches to cover only 3 1/3 innings while giving up three runs and five hits.
On the other side, the Reds faced a 22-year-old left-hander, Kyle Harrison, making his second major league start and first at home.
Before the season began, Harrison was ranked as the No. 1 left-handed prospect by MLB.com and Abbott was No. 2.
Harrison displayed that in no uncertain terms.
He struck out the first five Reds en route to striking out 11, holding the Reds to no runs and three hits over 6 1/3 innings. The Reds couldn’t take a bite out of most of his pitches, some as wide as a cathedral’s front door.
Before Monday, Harrison had not pitched beyond five innings in any of his minor league starts this season.
The already feeble Reds offense was further crippled when Matt McLain was placed on the injured list with a strained right oblique, an injury that can linger.
For the night, the Reds produced a measly six hits and struck out 14 times.
The game was an argument for placement in the wild card standings and when the game began the two teams were tied.
Neither team was showing any fire in August. The Reds were 9-15 this month and the Giants were 9-14. And the Giants have lost seven straight series.
But with the win, the Giants moved up to fourth and dropped the Reds to fifth as they both pursue the third wild card position, the final spot to qualify for the playoffs.
After scoring a run in the first off Abbott, the Giants scored two in the third after Abbott threw 52 pitches in the first two innings.
Thairo Estrada opened the inning with a single and J.D. Davis moved him to second with a single. Patrick Bailey doubled for a run and a second run scored on Paul DeJong’s sacrifice fly.
The Giants added a fourth run in the sixth inning against Derek Law on a single by Heliot Ramos and a two-out double by pinch-hitter Wade Meckler to make it 4-0 and tuck the win in San Francisco’s bag.
If the Reds looked as if they were sleep-walking, they might have been. Their aircraft out of Phoenix late Sunday afternoon encountered mechanical difficulties and the plane and the team sat on the tarmac for eight hours.
They arrived in San Francisco at dawn’s early light.
The Reds first real threat was in the seventh when Christian Encarnacion-Strand doubled and tried to score on TJ Friedl’s single but was thrown out by right fielder Ramos.
They avoided a shutout in the eighth on a single by Nick Senzel and a double by Elly De La Cruz, but they went down 1-2-3 in the ninth.
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