FSM Essential Recap: Dodgers vs Giants - Series 33

FSM Essential Recap: Dodgers vs Giants – Series 33

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Los Angeles Dodgers (62-42  |  San Francisco Giants (64-38)

 

“Above anything else, I hate to lose”

– Jackie Robinson

 

Game 3:

 

A day after scoring eight runs, the Dodgers’ bats were ice cold as they dropped the series to the Giants with a 5-0 loss. L.A. now moves to three games back in the division.

“It’s alive and well,” manager Dave Roberts said on the division race. “They’ve earned this. They’ve played better, clearly. All we can do is turn the page. We’ve got a ways to go. It’s in our own fate. We got to play better baseball, bottom line.”

Things just weren’t clicking early on for David Price, as he walked three hitters in the first inning to load the bases. For Price, this was his first outing all season with three walks… and he did it today in the first inning. Over his previous 36 ²⁄₃ innings of work, Price had only issued nine walks.

“Walking three guys puts myself in a tough spot,” Price said following the game. “They did a good job of fighting pitches off, and they made me pay for it today.”

Well, it came back to bite him as he allowed a double to Brandon Crawford, giving San Francisco a 2-0 lead. To make it even more painful, Crawford beat the shift with his hit as it had an expected batting average of .150.

Price’s velocity was noticeably lower than it’s been in previous outings. He said he just didn’t have a good feel for the baseball today.

“I didn’t have very good feel for anything,” he said. “When I was playing catch before the game, I thought I was going to throw really hard today. It was weird.”

Roberts noticed the drop in velocity as well but said he wasn’t concerned about it.

 

The Giants tacked on another run with two outs an inning later. After Johnny Cueto reached with a single, Wilmer Flores doubled him in to give the Giants 3-0 lead. If you notice a theme with the Giants scoring today, it’s because all their runs came with two outs on the afternoon.

Price ended up giving the Dodgers 4 ¹⁄₃ innings. He allowed four runs to score on four hits and struck out two.

San Francisco scored another run (with two outs) in the fourth inning, as Austin Slater singled in a runner that reached due to an error. Then in the seventh (with you guessed it, two outs!) LaMonte Wade Jr. doubled in a run for his first hit off a left-handed pitcher this season.

Meanwhile, the Dodgers offense was missing all day. Their lone chance to do any damage came in the sixth inning when they had the bases loaded with two outs. Cody Bellinger stepped up to the plate and didn’t even give a competitive at-bat, as he struck out on three pitches, ending any hope of a rally.

L.A. had only four hits for the game, with two of them coming from AJ Pollock, who continues to hit everything in sight. Yet again, the Dodgers’ offense goes ice cold, which has been a theme for them over the last week.

 

Game 3 Boxscore:

 

WP: Johnny Cueto (7-5)

LP: David Price (4-1)

 

The Dodgers will travel to Arizona and play the Diamondbacks for a three-game series. Tony Gonsolin will take the mound for the Dodgers against Zac Gallon. The first pitch is scheduled for 6:40 with the game being seen on SportsNet LA.

 

 

Game 2:

 

For the second time in as many starts, Walker Buehler was stingy against the Giants. On Wednesday night in San Francisco, the Dodgers offense provided much more support in an 8-0 win that pulled Los Angeles to within two games of San Francisco in the National League West.

Buehler, pitching on his birthday for a third straight year, allowed only the occasional batter to reach base on Wednesday, with three singles and two walks. Two of those were erased on ground ball double plays.

Only once did two Giants reach base against Buehler in the same inning, and that was only because of a wild pitch on a strikeout of Alex Dickerson in the sixth, one of eight strikeouts Buehler had on the night.

“He’s nasty. He’s just dialed in,” outfielder AJ Pollock said of Buehler. “He doesn’t look like a fun at-bat up there.”

Buehler has allowed just 13 total runs in his last 10 starts, and he’s allowed zero or one run nine times this season. His ERA is 2.19, ranking second in the National League behind only Brandon Woodruff of the Brewers. Buehler has a 0.00 ERA as a 27-year-old.

“We all know how good he is in October, and I think a challenge for him — the next level — was to put it together in the regular season,” manager Dave Roberts said. “To throw 100 pitches and go deep into games, the consistency, what he does for our ball club, he’s been a big bonus, considering all we’ve had to go through this year.”

Buehler’s mound counterpart didn’t fare as well on Wednesday.

 

It really is bizarre how well the Dodgers have done this season against right-hander Anthony DeSclafani, who has owned just about everyone else, to the tune of a 1.78 ERA in 16 starts. He’s allowed 21 total runs in those starts, but the Dodgers have scored 22 runs off DeSclafani in 21 innings.

Four of those runs came Wednesday, all in a punishing fourth inning that the right-hander couldn’t finish. DeScalafani faced eight batters in the fateful frame, walking two. He threw a whopping 40 pitches in the inning before getting pulled with two outs. The Dodgers swung at half of them and didn’t miss a single one. Fourteen of those were foul balls, agonizingly extending plate appearances, but they also had four hits in the inning, the key blow a two-run triple by Will Smith appropriately hit to Triples Alley in right-center.

“These guys do a great job of preventing runs,” Roberts said. “It seems DeSclafani dominates everyone else in the league, but we seem to put up some runs against him. I don’t know.”

Reliever John Brebbia found himself in the crosshairs in the seventh, an inning that started with Pollock getting hit by a pitch after singles in his first three at-bats. Two more hits followed, including a two-run double by Max Muncy, giving him 10 extra-base hits and 12 RBI in 15 games against the Giants this season.

Brebbia was still in the game in the eighth inning, when Cody Bellinger homered to right field, his second home run in a hellacious July in which he has nine hits in 79 at-bats. Four of those hits have come in his last three starts, including three extra-base hits, after just one extra-base hit in his previous 20 games.

 

Game 2 Boxscore:

 

WP: Walker Buehler (11-1)

LP: Anthony DeSclafani (10-5)

HR: Cody Bellinger (5)

 

David Price starts for the Dodgers, and he will be facing Johnny Cueto for the Giants today in the series finale. It’s a businessman’s special with a 12:45 start time and can be seen on SportsNet LA, and MLB Network.

 

 

 

Game 1:

 

After three straight games with lead changes in the ninth inning last week in Los Angeles, the Dodgers and Giants on Tuesday in San Francisco decided things in the eighth inning, with the winning run scoring on the worst throw of the season from Cody Bellinger in a 2-1 loss.

First base isn’t new to Bellinger, who has played more career games at the position than any particular outfield spot. But this was his first game all year at the position.

Blake Treinen, who escaped a jam to end the seventh, started the eighth with two walks, just his second game of the season with multiple walks. Up next was Darin Ruf, who grounded out to Max Muncy, who didn’t have time to tag Mike Yastrzemski before throwing to first.

One out secured, Bellinger had two potential options. Trying to get Yastrzemski at second base was one, and Bellinger pump-faked in that direction, but with Buster Posey straying from third base, Bellinger opted instead to go for the lead runner. Only Bellinger uncorked a throw well over Justin Turner’s head and into the netting, allowing Posey to jog home with the winning run.

“I pump-faked at second to try to get Posey off the base, and when I looked, I say him off the base, enough that a good throw gets him,” Bellinger explained. “It just slipped out of my hand. There’s no excuses. I just threw it too high.”

“It’s one of those plays that surprised everybody,” said manager Dave Roberts.

 

Would Bellinger make the same decision over again?

“I think a good throw gets him still,” he said. “I saw him turn, he had his momentum toward home. JT was right there, so I think a good throw gets him.“It was a horrible throw. Horrible throw.”

The Dodgers had a golden opportunity to break the tie in the top of the eighth against frisbee submariner Tyler Rogers, with a Chris Taylor double putting runners at second and third with only one out for the heart of the lineup. But Muncy grounded out, and Turner flew out to end the threat.

The Dodgers are 13-18 in one-run games. The Giants are 16-13. San Francisco now leads the National League West by three games.

L.A. has only scored five runs in its last three games, all one-run affairs, with the Dodgers winning two. But not on Tuesday.

 

“As an offense, we’ve got to be better at getting baserunners, and when we do get in run-scoring situations, we’ve got to drive them in,” Roberts said. “Our pitching staff has been fantastic at preventing runs, and we’ve got to continue to get better on the offensive side.”

Logan Webb and Julio Urías pitched like they were trying to solve MLB’s pace of play problems all by themselves, getting through six innings in roughly 90 minutes. Both starting pitchers allowed only one run, thanks to a few hits getting bunched together.

Bellinger singled, advanced on a groundout, and scored on Billy McKinney’s single in the fifth. It was the first hit against the Giants in 2021 for Bellinger, who was 0 for his first 28 against them with 12 strikeouts.

Urías allowed only three singles in his first five innings, but the Giants tied things up with three hits of their own in the sixth. The last of those hits, a two-out single by Darin Ruf, put two go-ahead runners on and chased Urías, but Brusdar Graterol escaped the jam when Wilmer Flores’ liner found its way into Bellinger’s glove at first base.

 

Game 1 Boxscore:

 

WP: Tyler Rogers (2-1)

LP: Blake Treinen (2-5)

SV: Jake McGee (21)

 

The Dodgers will start Walker Buehler with right-hander Anthony DeSclafani going for San Francisco tonight. The first pitch is at 6:45 and can be seen on SportsNet LA.

 

Dodgers vs Giants                       Dodgers vs Giants                     Dodgers vs Giants                     Dodgers vs Giants                     Dodgers vs Giants                     Dodgers vs Giants                     Dodgers vs Giants                     Dodgers vs Giants                     Dodgers vs Giants                    

– Joe Arrigo

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