LOS ANGELES – When it mattered most Monday night, the Dodgers did what the Giants couldn't.
With runners on the corners and two out in the underside of the eighth inning, Teoscar Hernández broke a tied game with a single to center off Randy Rodríguez, scoring the lead and deciding run that handed the Giants a tricky 3-2 loss in the beginning of their four-game series.
Hernández slammed his bat into first base in celebration as he made his solution to first base, getting his third RBI hit of the sport and his second with runners in scoring position. The Giants had failed to try this in seven possibilities, wasting a 3rd straight strong performance from Blake Snell, who, as promised, held the Dodgers' strong lineup to 2 runs on 4 hits in six efficient innings.
“It was his night,” Snell said. “We need wins. Anytime I get the ball, I expect us to win. So I have to be better and help us by limiting the number of runs.”
The decisive blow was initiated by a leadoff double by No. 9 batter Kiké Hernández against Erik Miller that fell between Heliot Ramos and Luis Matos because the two outfielders converged on the left-center field track, in addition to an aborted double play that was not ruled an interference.
“I think Heliot predicted it, and then when he got closer and felt like they were going to collide, he took a step back,” manager Bob Melvin said.
It was the Giants' sixth straight loss at Dodger Stadium, where they’re 5-15 of their last 20 games and their thirteenth overall of their last 17 meetings. It also puts them five games under their .500 record with every week to go before next Tuesday's transfer deadline and trails five other teams for the National League's final wild card, including the Cubs, whose president of baseball operations Jed Hoyer unveiled an asset-sale strategy on Monday.
Snell, who was signed partially due to his historic win against the Dodgers, has been unavailable for all three previous meetings this season. Just getting him from his All-Star vacation home in Seattle to Los Angeles required his path to be rerouted through San Francisco as a substitute of meeting the team in Colorado after he was affected by last week's Crowdstrike system outage that grounded flights nationwide.
Snell limited the Dodgers to 4 hits and allowed two walks. He needed just 83 pitches to finish six innings and left the sphere with the rating tied at 2-2. Both runs got here from Hernández, who turned an inside slider right into a solo home run within the fourth inning and hit a single up the center with two outs within the sixth inning to bring home Freddie Freeman.
The runs were the primary Snell has allowed in 18 innings since coming back from the injured list and just the sixth and seventh of his profession in six starts at Dodger Stadium. In 17 profession starts against the Dodgers (including the postseason), Snell has a 2.62 ERA and the bottom opponent batting average of any player with a minimum of 15 profession starts.
“I think my sequencing still needs to get better, I just need to understand what feeling I had throughout the game and trust that. But I'm making progress,” said Snell, who lowered his ERA to five.83, the bottom in nine starts this season. “I still think there's a better version of me coming. It's hard to say without giving anything away, but I'm definitely going to keep getting better.”
In his major league debut, Snell's opponent, 25-year-old right-hander River Ryan, never made it past five innings in any of his minor league starts, however the Giants easily let him pitch until the sixth inning, and for the fourth straight game because the All-Star break, he did not rating greater than three runs.
Once again, Tyler Fitzgerald was the mainstay of the Giants' offense, hitting a solo home run on reliever Ryan Yarbrough's first pitch to briefly tie the sport at 2-2 after Hernandez had given the Dodgers a 2-1 lead within the previous inning.
Fitzgerald, starting at shortstop for the third consecutive game, continued to reward Melvin for putting his name within the lineup. The home run was his third in as many games — 4 in a row before the All-Star break, the primary Giants hitter to accomplish that since Brandon Belt in 2018 — and he has 4 hits in eight at-bats because the break.
“He's playing with a lot more confidence and is a lot calmer now knowing he's going to be here and get more playing time,” Melvin said. “Since we added (Nick) Ahmed to the shortstop position, he's been a lot more confident in his time here.”
Fitzgerald also took center stage defensively within the eighth inning, moving behind the bottom at second base to catch a possible base hit and throwing the ball out of his glove (and the seat of his pants) to Brett Wisely, who was late throwing to first base as runner Will Smith lined up in front of him.
The Giants asked the umpires to think about whether Smith had violated the clear path rule, which might mechanically throw out the runner on the primary out and end the inning with the rating still tied. The rule was unsuccessful, nonetheless, and Melvin admitted afterward, “That was probably too far-fetched.”
The only run the Giants scored against Ryan got here within the fourth inning when catcher Will Smith did not catch a fastball off the plate, allowing LaMonte Wade Jr. to scamper home from third base. But after Patrick Bailey's single and Matt Chapman's bases on balls left two men on the sphere, the Giants were unable to capitalize on the scoring opportunity as Mike Yastrzemski went down swinging in the underside of the inning.
Even hard contact was difficult, with balls against Ryan averaging just 82.5 mph. It wasn't until Ryan's last batter of the night, Bailey, hit a 101.8 mph single to the bottom of the wall that the Giants reached triple-digit exit velocity.
“He's going to be a problem. That's one of the better sliders I've ever seen,” Fitzgerald said. “He's really tricky. As a slider, he's 90-92 (mph). So if he throws it early in the count, he looks like a heater. … We didn't have too much information on him. We saw a couple of his minor league games, but hopefully we'll have a better game plan the next time we see him.”
Bailey's hit, certainly one of 3 times he got on base, gave the Giants runners on the corners with one out, but Dodgers manager Dave Roberts called on left-hander Alex Vesia, who won his matchups with Luis Matos when he filled in for Michael Conforto as a pinch hitter, and Matt Chapman, who struck out each batters with high fastballs.
After being limited to nine runs of their three-game series at hitting paradise Coors Field, the Giants' challenge of getting timely hits followed them back to sea level, where they were greeted by high temperatures between 35 and 25 degrees Celsius after they first pitched at 7:11 p.m.
In seven opportunities with runners in scoring position, the Giants did not get a single hit and left seven men on base. Since arriving in Denver after the All-Star break, they’ve hit 2 of 21 in those situations and left 21 runners behind.
“We've had problems with (runners in scoring position) all year,” Melvin said. “We've been a little better at it lately, but since the break, it's made a difference in games like this. We've got to take advantage of some of those opportunities like they did.”
Remarkable
The Dodgers honored the late Willie Mays at a pregame ceremony that featured his son Michael and a video of Vin Scully telling the story of the “best catch I've ever seen” – not the one you're considering of – while each teams were on the free throw line. Addressing the gang, Mays said, “This is crazy. Because I'm surrounded by blue. I had this nightmare when I was 15 years old. It's a noble organization that does this.”
Next
RHP Jordan Hicks (4-6, 3.79) will make certainly one of his last starts before moving to the bullpen, against RHP Landon Knack (1-2, 3.23). The first pitch is scheduled for 7:10 p.m.
Originally published:
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