D. Ross Cameron-USA TODAY Sports
Anthony DeSclafani stumbled in the second inning, a few Dodgers baserunners setting the table, and a Yoshi Tsutsugo single and double courtesy opposing starter Julio Urias providing the first three runs of the day.
The way the Dodgers’ pitching has dominated the Giants’ bats, the deficit felt insurmountable.
Urias flirted with perfection, DeSclafani flirted with imperfection and the Dodgers demolished the Giants, 11-5, to finish off a three-game sweep at Oracle Park that bumped the Giants out of first place and did not send the message that Gabe Kapler’s crew is legitimate contenders.
The Giants (28-19) entered the series having won five straight, the owners of the best record in baseball amid wonder whether their hot start was sustainable. They leave the series in third place in the division.
The Giants have an off day Monday before two games in Arizona, then visit Dodger Stadium for four more in a series that projects to be started by Trevor Bauer again. There will be more chances — 16 in total — for the Giants to prove themselves against their blood rivals, but the first three tries amounted to a disaster.
Bauer shut down the bats and infuriated the fans. Walker Buehler quietly pumped four-seamers by those bats. Urias’ fastball was effective and curveball devastating, frustrating the Giants through 5 1/3 perfect innings.
In all, the LA rotation went 19 1/3 innings and allowed three earned runs (1.40 ERA) against the Giants. They struck out 26 and only let up 11 hits. They delivered the statement that the Giants’ rotation was hoping to send, one of excellence and sustainability and one that is particularly loud coming from the defending World Series champions.
The Giants did nothing against Urias, virtually literally, until touching the lefty up in the sixth — but only with a pinkie. Mike Tauchman reached on an infield single up the middle that Gavin Lux could not barehand cleanly, and two batters later Austin Slater crushed a home run to left. Tauchman’s single, though, might have gotten the bigger cheer from a crowd of 13,346 who did not want to witness the wrong kind of perfection.
If the Dodgers’ second inning felt as if the game were out of reach, their third hurtled the contest into a different country.
DeSclafani had not allowed more than three runs in a start this year, and then the buzz saw that had been residing in the Dodgers’ rotation was lent to their offense. Six of seven batters reached with consistent, if not overwhelming, contact; singles were strung together, the sixth off Urias’ bat on a ball that Darin Ruf dove for and knocked down but could not field. The relentless pokes made it a 6-0 game, and then Lux got a down-the-middle slider and crushed it to right-center for a grand slam.
DeSclafani’s 10 runs allowed was a career high, and he became the first Giants starter since Ty Blach, in May 2017, to allow double-digit runs in a start. He started the day with a 2.03 ERA and ended it with a 3.54 ledger.
A Dodgers fan just proposed to a Giants fan at Oracle Park pic.twitter.com/MvPhgh6VuA
— KNBR (@KNBR) May 23, 2021
Kapler talks a lot about pace of play, and he walked briskly to the mound to lift DeSclafani and begin the portion of the game that became about eating innings rather than winning them. In the series’ first 25 innings, the Giants scored four runs; the Dodgers scored seven runs in that third inning.
Even moments of potential levity in the later frames drew soft boos from the fans on-hand. Sam Selman and Caleb Baragar got their first at-bats of their career — the world learned the southpaws are righty hitters — but they watched three strikes without attempting a swing, apparently ordered not to risk injury.
Thanks to some meaningless late action against the underbelly of the Dodgers’ bullpen, the Giants made the final score more respectable, but it was not a game again after the third inning.
There is no magnifying glass strong enough to examine what went right the past three days, but the best that can be said is it is only three games. The Giants are no longer in the NL West driver’s seat, but they can climb back into the position shortly.
They would need to figure out a rotation that stymied them without the presence of Clayton Kershaw.
