Gary A. Vasquez-USA TODAY Sports
LOS ANGELES — The Giants are playing the long game, Alex Wood pointed out. They are prioritizing rest and health over a short burst that might net them a win or two more earlier in the season but would come with more risk.
Buster Posey was not in Thursday’s starting lineup after catching two straight games; Evan Longoria sat Sunday against Julio Urias despite the third baseman crushing lefties. They are trying to remain disciplined even while the Dodgers remain powerful.
And yet, there was a peek at a sense of urgency in Thursday’s ninth inning. Posey had not been used as a pinch-hitter all season; Gabe Kapler values full days off, especially for his 34-year-old catcher, rather than heating up for just one at-bat. But it was the .339-hitting catcher, and not Mauricio Dubon, who took a final-inning at-bat against Kenley Jansen, whom Posey entered 8-of-23 against in his career.
It took four Jansen cutters before Posey returned to the dugout and could cool off. The Dodgers closer was nasty, and the gambit did not work. While the Giants are weighing the season as a whole over the head-to-head matchups with their blood rivals, Kapler might have sent a signal that, yes, these games matter plenty, too. Just not enough to justify jeopardizing Posey’s legs with a third straight game.
“We just have to be better. It’s not going to get any easier for us,” Kapler said after the Giants fell, 4-3, at Dodger Stadium. “We have to make small adjustments along the way — there’s not big adjustments to make — and trust that those adjustments will turn into some wins here.”
They were not better enough in their fourth loss of the season to the Dodgers without a win. They are 30-20 after 50 games, and 30-16 against everyone except their nemeses.
It was not Trevor Bauer, Walker Buehler and Julio Urias who stymied them this time, but rather a string of seven Dodgers pitchers — led by a dominant David Price — who pieced together a bullpen game in which the Giants managed just three hits (although two were home runs). If there was a game in this series that projected as a significant advantage toward the Giants, it was this one.
But the bookmarks of Price and Jansen were excellent. The Giants did a bit of damage off Joe Kelly and Victor Gonzalez, but did not have another hit after Donovan Solano’s sixth-inning home run that tied the game. Max Muncy untied it in the bottom of the inning.
“I just don’t think this is, ‘Hey, let’s try harder against the Dodgers.’ I think we have a good game plan right now,” Kapler said over Zoom. “It’s nothing that we’re going to turn on and then win these baseball games.”
As much as Wood would like to against his former team. He won a World Series with LA last year and has struggled — or at least not pitched quite as well — against his old friends this year. He allowed four runs in six innings, each score coming off three Dodgers home runs.
He felt he got “too cute” and jammed in too many fastballs while playing a team that knows him intimately and had just seen him last week. He threw fewer sliders than usual and maybe mixed up his game more than he should have to keep the Dodgers guessing.
He clearly knows what a team needs to do to win and what a serious contender looks like, as the ring he and Jake McGee will receive Friday underscores. Does an underdog with big plans beginning the season 0-4 against its biggest foe weigh on a team?
“I don’t think so,” Wood said. “We’ve played really well up to this point. They’re a great team, and sometimes you gotta tip your cap.
“… We’ll face a couple of their dudes here starting the next couple nights, and hopefully we can scratch out a win.”
He pointed out that all the games, save Sunday’s implosion from Anthony DeSclafani, have been close. He pointed out that the Giants are not going all-out and over-taxing veterans to better contend.
He is right apart from the Posey pinch-hit, and the Giants are off to a fast start anyway. But it’s a third-place start.
“We’ve done some good work,” Kapler said about the state of the Giants at game 50, “and obviously we need to play better against the Dodgers.”