LOS ANGELES–The Giants (61-95) hoped to face the Clayton Kershaw that allowed the first grand slam of his career to Aaron Altherr in his last start. What they got was a characteristically dominant Kershaw as his gem led the Dodgers (99-57) to a 3-1 victory Sunday afternoon.
“They’re good,” Giants’ starter Chris Stratton said. “That’s the reason why they’ve won as many games and they have, especially when you’re going up against Kershaw as locked in as he was, there’s not a lot of room for mistakes.”
Only Hunter Pence, who went 3-3 with a trio of singles, and Mac Williamson found any luck against Kershaw. Williamson’s solo long ball in the eighth put him in company with Buster Posey (3), Madison Bumgarner (2), Kelby Tomlinson (1) and Pence (1) as the only Giants with homers against Kershaw.
After leading off the second inning with a single, Curtis Granderson scored the first run of the game on Yasmani Grandal’s sacrifice. It would have been Yasiel Puig to score that run if his unprompted attempt to steal second base that ended Saturday night’s game hadn’t broken the camel’s, or in this case Dave Robert’s. back.
To say the least, Roberts was not pleased with Puig’s questionable base running and along with other issues, decided to give Granderson the start in right field.
Yasiel Puig isn’t playing today as Dave Roberts remains upset with Puig after the stolen-base mishap last night.
— Andy McCullough (@McCulloughTimes) September 24, 2017
Roberts indicated that Puig’s benching was related to more than one incident. The irritation has built up, apparently.
— Andy McCullough (@McCulloughTimes) September 24, 2017
In the visiting manager’s office, Bruce Bochy penned another lineup change that put Tomlinson at second to replace Joe Panik, who is nursing a sore elbow.
On Friday night, Panik was hit by Rich Hill in the third inning. He went on to finish the night and played the entire game on Saturday, but the skipper gave his everyday second baseman the day off.
After Grandal hit a two-run homer in the fourth, Chris Taylor looked to add to the Dodgers’ 3-1 lead with Joc Pederson at third base and two outs. Stratton escaped the jam, but not with a flashy defensive play or crucial strikeout. It was a Dodger fan who retired Taylor when he reached over the right field wall and interfered with Pence trying to make the catch in foul territory.
Nonetheless, the fourth inning marked the end of Stratton’s second shot against the Dodgers. Earlier this month, Stratton was set to face the Dodgers on September 11. Instead, Stratton only struck out Granderson and later exited after a rain delay that lasted roughly three hours.
This time, Stratton pitched through four innings, giving up three runs with three walks and two strikeouts. Ty Blach took over from there and put up three scoreless innings in his first relief appearance since being bumped from the rotation. With one start left this season, Stratton can finish the year on a high note and help his cause for next year’s rotation against the San Diego Padres.
“I think overall its been a good past month and a half, two months or whatever its been,” Stratton said. “I definitely want to go home with a good taste in my mouth, so the hope is the next one is better than this one, but I’m just trying to finish strong.”