On a commonly crisp September night in San Francisco, the only thing colder than the atmosphere was (once again) the Giants’ offense.
In a series in which the Giants were hoping to add to the Dodgers crippling collapse, it was Los Angeles that emerged victorious — winning the latter two games to take the series after losing 11 straight games prior. And while the Giants were able to avoid facing Clayton Kershaw in his usual pristine form on Tuesday, they were not so lucky against the Dodgers’ “backup ace” in Yu Darvish.
In his first career start at AT&T Park, Darvish made mincemeat of a stagnant Giants lineup, stifling the Giants over seven shut out innings and finally providing Dodgers’ front office with the type of showing they were looking for when they brought him here from Texas.
Darvish wasn’t the only one facing an unfamiliar situation Wednesday — besides Denard Span, no other current Giants player had faced Darvish before in their career. The inexperience showed as Darvish pummeled a San Francisco roster seasoned with veterans, allowing just three hits, no walks and striking out five.
After Pence’s leadoff infield single in the first and Nick Hundley’s single in the second, the Giants bats remained in a deafening silence until the seventh inning. Although Jarrett Parker’s single broke up a five-inning drought without a Giants baserunner, the drama was short lived after he was doubled up on the next play. It was the second double-play of the game to end a legitimate San Francisco threat.
The Giants’ defense was noticeably bad well. Hunter Pence and the respective second baseman (in Wednesday night’s case, Kelby Tomlinson) allowed a pop-up to fall between them for the second straight game and Pablo Sandoval followed up right after with a throwing error, resulting in a series of exasperated boos from the home crowd.
Matt Moore wasn’t nearly as effective as Darvish in his pursuit for his mere sixth win of the year. He ran into trouble early — the second batter of the game to be precise — and already had a mound visit and 32 pitches under his belt before the first inning was over. Cody Bellinger smashed his first big hit of the night, an RBI triple, and scored on the next at bat courtesy of Logan Forsythe’s RBI single, putting the Dodgers up 2-0 before the Giants even had a chance to step up to the plate.
Yet first inning aside, Moore showcased an impressive exhibit in damage control throughout the rest of his appearance. He pitched around Pence and Sandoval’s back-to-back errors in the second inning and a dropped tag on a swipe attempt on Yasiel Puig’s steal of third. He remained unfazed and brought the life back to a deflated AT&T Park with an emphatic strikeout of Bellinger to end the inning with the bases loaded.
It would be Bellinger who would have the last laugh, however, as he channelled his best Barry Bonds’ impression by blasting a two-run shot into McCovey Cove in the fifth, bringing the Dodgers lead to 4-0 and nailing the Giants’ eventual coffin shut. The blast combined with a walk to Austin Barnes to knock Moore out of the game, who’s final stat line showed four runs on five hits, three walks and five strikeouts over 4.1 innings.
“That (pitch) was way too much of a cookie for Bellinger, he handles that pitch really well,” Moore said. “It wasn’t high enough, it wasn’t out over the plate towards his away corner. That was a pretty big mistake. If we keep it to two runs right there, I like our chances.
The combined bullpen effort of Kyle Crick, Cory Gearrin, Reyes Moronta and Hunter Strickland stumped the Dodgers and allowed just one hit through 4.2 innings of relief, but their efforts weren’t enough to make up for a lackluster offense. The Giants ninth-inning one-run rally came too little, too late to overcome eight innings in which a base runner didn’t advance past second base. With two outs in the bottom of the ninth, Pence singled and Parker followed with a base hit of his own to drive in Pence to avoid the shutout. But Denard Span struck out with Parker on second, leaving the Giants’ fans at AT&T disappointed and Dodgers fans (for the moment) able to exhale.
“You hate to play like this in this series,” Bochy said after the loss. “You’re playing a good team like the Dodgers, as well as they’re playing you have to play your best ball. It’s frustrating. We need to clean it up here, communicate better. We’re just making too many mistakes.”