Charles LeClaire-USA TODAY Sports
While it is too early to make pronouncements about a team’s quality on May 23, perhaps an exception can be made with a division.
The NL West is good.
The Giants entered a three-game showdown with the Dodgers with the majors’ best record, and they now leave it in third place in their own division.
The Padres (30-18) now have the best mark in MLB and have won nine straight. The Dodgers (29-18) are a game back and, as of publication time, had the second best record in baseball. The Giants (28-19) are two games back of San Diego and have a winning percentage that would lead every other division apart from the AL East.
The Giants have done a lot of damage and built some equity early in this season, but the margin for error in a division with a couple of powerhouses is thinner than Mauricio Dubon’s mustache.
“There’s going to be some ebbs and flows to the season,” Gabe Kapler said after the Giants’ 11-5 loss to the Dodgers on Sunday at Oracle Park. “We didn’t expect there to be no challenging moments — we certainly didn’t think there were going to be no challenging moments in the series.”
The Giants are in fine shape and head to Arizona for two games before a four-game rematch at Dodger Stadium. They were outpitched in an entertaining duel Friday by Trevor Bauer; they were shut down by Walker Buehler on Saturday; they were demolished by a powerful Dodgers offense (that didn’t even have Mookie Betts) that knocked Anthony DeSclafani out of Sunday’s game in the third inning.
“We got beat every which way this series,” Kapler said.
They do not want the extrapolation to be made that the team over the past three days is representative.
“The series can’t take away from what we’ve done so far,” said DeSclafani, whose first hiccup of the season was a loud one, with 10 runs allowed. “We’re still in a really good spot. We’ll have series where we’re going to get swept — it is what it is, there’s ups and downs in every season. We have a really good team.”
While DeSclafani’s results were an issue in the finale, the rotation was not the problem. The Giants repeatedly could not get good swings off against Bauer, Buehler and Urias, who combined for 19 1/3 innings while allowing three earned runs (1.40 ERA). Urias took a perfect game into Sunday’s sixth inning.
The only runs that were charged to him came from Austin Slater’s bat, a two-run homer to left.
“They’re spinning the ball well, better than they ever have,” Slater said of the Dodgers’ aces, speaking for the San Francisco offense. “… That’s a good ballclub, and we have a good club, too.”
Few will dispute that. Nor the fact that the Padres are good. The Giants have taken steps, but their competitors have not been stationary.
Two starts ago, in Pittsburgh, DeSclafani felt sluggish. In his previous start, in Cincinnati, he said he felt he had to grind through his seven strong innings.
Sunday?
“I felt pretty good. Physically, I felt the balls coming out of my hand really well,” said the righty whose ERA swelled from 2.03 to 3.54.
For the most part, it was not blistering contact from the Dodgers, who found consistent holes. Los Angeles attacked early. Four of the third-inning hits came on the first or second pitches of their at-bats, including Gavin Lux’s second-pitch grand slam.
“They came out hacking, they came out swinging for sure,” DeSclafani said over Zoom. “They had a game plan, they stuck to it, and they executed, obviously. … It’s just something to keep in mind for next time and just see what adjustments need to be made.”
Before the game, the Giants placed Matt Wisler, whose grandmother passed, on the bereavement list. Sam Selman was recalled and pitched 2 1/3 innings.
