© Richard Mackson | USA Today
You’ve heard it before: the Giants and Los Angeles Dodgers are playing a series in the latter part of the season with huge playoff implications. The Giants entered tonight with a chance to close the gap on the Arizona Diamondbacks’ National League West lead to five games, and stay within four games of the second-place Dodgers.
For eight innings, it felt like the Giants might not make use of that chance, as they managed just one run off Clayton Kershaw. But the Kenley Jansen-less Dodgers – a team that lost their previous two games to the Colorado Rockies on walk-off home runs – have had immense bullpen struggles as of late, and the Giants took advantage of those struggles to win 5-2.
The Dodgers went to Scott Alexander in the ninth, who forced a groundout to Andrew McCutchen to open the inning. Then, Chase d’Arnaud – who stepped up to the plate 0-for-3 with three strikeouts – salivated at the chance to face a pitcher not named Kershaw. He hit a single, and from there, the floodgates opened. Buster Posey followed up with a single of his own before Evan Longoria grounded out and Austin Slater was hit by a pitch.
With two outs and the bases loaded, Nick Hundley came into the game as a pinch-hitter for Alen Hanson to have an at-bat that any young Giants fan would dream of. He ripped a two-run single to right-center field, giving the Giants a 3-2 lead. From there, the two-out runs kept coming.
Gorkys Hernandez followed up with a one-run single of his own, moving Hundley to third. Just when it seemed like the scoring was over, Steven Duggar hit a seemingly easy grounder to first base. But the ball bounced off the wrist of Dodgers’ first baseman Max Muncy, and another run came in to give the Giants a 5-2 lead.
Despite the win, the Giants might have suffered a huge setback. Brandon Crawford left the game in the fifth inning following a collision with Hernandez the inning prior. Kershaw hit a ball to the triangle in left field with a man on first and two outs, leading to a violent collision between Crawford and Hernandez.
After both players batted in the top of the fifth inning, Crawford left the game after talking to Dave Groeschner, the Giants’ director of athletic training, and was replaced by Alen Hanson.
As you would expect in a matchup between Kershaw and Madison Bumgarner, it was a low-scoring affair. But while Kershaw was dominant, allowing just four hits and pitching eight innings, Bumgarner was not. While he was effective in allowing just two runs through six innings, Bumgarner allowed at least one hit in all six of the innings he pitched.
His first run came off the freak bloop single from Kershaw, while the second came from a solo home run that Justin Turner shot into left field. That 2-1 Dodgers lead seemed like it would hold pat until another nightmare bullpen outing.
One of the other bright spots for the Giants was Duggar. The rookie picked up a pair of singles against Kershaw and had nine total bases. In the third inning, he stole second base off a pickoff play and later moved to third on a wild pitch. After reaching on his second single in the sixth, Bumgarner moved Duggar to third with a single of his own. Duggar scored a play later to cut the score to 2-1, as Andrew McCutchen grounded out to third.
The win moves the Giants (60-60) back to .500.