© John Hefti | 2021 Sep 1
At 9:16 on Wednesday night, the Giants and NL Central-leading Milwaukee Brewers were deadlocked at 2 in Oracle Park. Three-hundred and seventy-nine miles south down I-5 in Los Angeles, so were the Dodgers and NL East-leading Atlanta Braves.
On Aug. 16, just more than two weeks ago, the Giants led the Dodgers in the National League West by five games. They finished August with a 19-9 record, the best month of the season for a club that hasn’t played a month below .600. The only problem? The second-place Dodgers went 21-6 in the dog days.
Despite the surging Dodgers, SF clung to a .5-game division lead heading into September with the best record in baseball.
Then Wednesday night’s dueling games went in chaotic, divergent paths, and the NL West power officially shifted.
Dominic Leone tripped over first base to extend the seventh inning in the Bay, then Jace Peterson singled off José Álvarez to give Milwaukee a 3-2 lead. In Los Angeles, shortstop Dansby Swanson gave Atlanta a 3-2 lead with a solo shot to left field off LA reliever Alex Vesia. But the Dodgers responded with clutch hits from Trea Turner, Justin Turner and A.J. Pollock to take a 4-3 edge.
While the Dodgers came back, the Giants wasted LaMonte Wade Jr.’s eighth-inning double — a hit that would’ve left every other ballpark. John Brebbia struggled in the top of the ninth, dooming SF to a 5-2 loss.
Now, after losing five out of their last six — along with LA’s 4-3 victory Tuesday night — San Francisco (84-49) is a second-place team. The Giants held pole position for 119 days.
With the defeat, the Giants have tied their season-high with four straight losses. The past two losses came at the hands — arms, rather — of Cy Young Award candidates Corbin Burnes and Brandon Woodruff. SF didn’t have such an excuse Wednesday, facing Brett Anderson, but still managed to plate just two runs.
San Francisco, projected preseason to finish behind both the Dodgers and San Diego Padres, have made it this far with consistent play. They recently won nine straight series. They haven’t gone on prolonged losing skids.
Yet here they are, losers of four straight, in second-place trying to avoid a four-game sweep to Milwaukee Thursday before their weekend series with, yes, the Dodgers.
The way Wednesday played out, though, could really sting depending on how the rest of the regular season plays out.
Despite starting the game off by striking out three times on three Gausman splitters, the Brewers rallied in the second to jump ahead 2-0. It would’ve been 3-0, too, had Gausman not collected a swinging bunt and flipped it to Buster Posey at home to cut down Luis Urías.
SF wasn’t hopeless at the plate, like it’s seemed in the past three contests. The Giants put a runner in scoring position with one or no outs in each of the first three innings, but couldn’t capitalize.
And they caught a break, too, when Brett Anderson exited in the third inning. He’d been hit in the back of his left shoulder by a 103.1mph comebacker off Brandon Crawford’s bat. When former Giant Hunter Strickland replaced Anderson, he’d thrown 38 pitches in two scoreless innings.
Timely hitting from Alex Dickerson, Kris Bryant and Buster Posey plated two runs in the fifth to tie the game, but the Brewers’ high-leverage relievers of Brad Boxburger, Jake Cousins and Josh Hader shut SF down after the seventh-inning lead change.
In the eighth, after Wade Jr.’s double off the arcade brick wall, SF had two outs to play with against Cousins. Crawford walked, Austin Slater struck out, and Thairo Estrada grounded out softly.
And as LA’s Joe Kelly sat Atlanta down in order in the top of the ninth at Dodger Stadium, Lorenzo Cain (2-for-3, 3 RBI) and Willy Adames provided Milwaukee with two insurance runs.
The Dodgers rallied, the Giants whimpered. Their seasons have run just about parallel for weeks, but on Wednesday night, they converged. And this weekend in Oracle, they’ll clash.