Stan Szeto-USA TODAY Sports
One more left.
Both the Giants and Dodgers played as if they wanted Sunday to arrive quickly.
Logan Webb was encouraging, the Giants’ offense was discouraging and Bruce Bochy is a losing Giants manager on the eve of his career finale. He fell to 1,052-1,053 in his esteemed San Francisco tenure Saturday, losing 2-0 at Oracle Park in a sprint in a season of so many marathons.
It took two hours, 40 minutes for the 37,518 on hand to watch the Giants’ offense start silently and never manufacture any noise, finishing with just seven hits. A day after the Giants squandered opportunity after opportunity – they left 17 on base Friday – the decided to shelve chances altogether.
They could do nothing off Hyun-Jin Ryu, who claimed the ERA title from Jacob deGrom. Ryu’s seven scoreless innings lowered his mark to 2.32, while the Mets ace’s sits at 2.43.
Ryu let up up just five hits without walking a batter, the Giants mostly threat-less apart from a few middle-inning attempts. In the fourth, they put two on with one out, but Evan Longoria and Kevin Pillar flew out. An inning later, Joey Rickard and Webb – with his first career hit – reached with two outs, but Donovan Solano’s fielder’s choice represented their last real missed opportunity for damage.
They did put the potential game-winning run at the plate in the ninth, but Kenley Jansen then struck out Stephen Vogt, Jaylin Davis and Alex Dickerson.
If there is a bright side to this Giants (77-84) season, it is that there are nearly always bright spots arriving amid depressing times. Webb has put himself on the Giants’ radar for a rotation spot next spring, finishing the season with a 5.22 ERA and two of his best starts in his brief career.
He lasted six, two-run innings against the Dodgers a week after holding Atlanta to a single run in six innings. Those are two good offenses to mostly shut down. He struck out five, most with a mid-90s fastball and one with a slow slider. His moving fastball catching Corey Seager whiffing in the fourth is the type of stuff the Giants hope to build on.
He made just a couple mistakes, a straight-down-the-middle fastball to Ryu in the fifth that drove in Gavin Lux for the Dodgers’ first run, and another meatball to Max Muncy in the following inning, which landed 429 feet away.
Another redeeming factor for the Giants arrived in the ninth, when Tyler Rogers and so befuddled Dodgers batters. He struck out the side – Kike Hernandez, Seager and Edwin Rios – for a scoreless frame. He hasn’t given up a run in 8 1/3 innings and his ERA is down to 1.08.
It will be Dereck Rodriguez and not Madison Bumgarner who gets the ball for Sunday’s season finale in a game that promises to be filled with emotion and memory. It will be more past than future, as much as the Giants try to uncover players who will take them there.