LOS ANGELES — When it mattered most Monday night, the Dodgers did what the Giants were unable to accomplish.
With runners at the corners and two outs in the bottom of the eighth, Teoscar Hernández broke a tied ballgame with a single up the middle off Randy Rodríguez, scoring the go-ahead and decisive run to hand the Giants a tough 3-2 loss to begin their four-game series.
Hernández slammed his bat in celebration as he made his way up the first-base line, coming through with his third RBI knock of the game of the game and his second with runners in scoring position, something the Giants weren’t able to muster in seven chances, wasting a third straight strong effort from Blake Snell, who came as advertised by holding the powerful Dodgers lineup to two runs on four hits over six efficient innings.
“It was his night,” Snell said. “We need wins. Anytime I take the ball I expect that we should win, so I’ve got to be better and help us anyway I can by limiting runs.”
The decisive knock was set up by a leadoff double from Kiké Hernández, the No. 9 hitter, against Erik Miller that fell in between Heliot Ramos and Luis Matos as the two outfielders converged on the track in left-center field, and a broken-up double play that was ruled not to be obstruction.
“I think Heliot called it, and then when he got close and felt like they were going to run into each other, he backed off,” manager Bob Melvin said.
The loss was the Giants’ sixth in a row at Dodger Stadium, where they are 5-15 over their past 20 games and was their 13th in their past 17 meetings overall with their archrivals, whom Snell came with a reputation of owning.
Signed in part because of his historic success against the Dodgers, Snell was unavailable all three of their previous meetings this season, and just to get him to Los Angeles from his All-Star break home in Seattle required rerouting him through San Francisco, instead of meeting the team in Colorado, after he was caught up in the Crowdstrike system outage last week that grounded flights nationwide.
Limiting the Dodgers to four hits and issuing two walks, Snell needed only 83 pitches to complete six innings and departed with the score tied at 2. Both runs came courtesy of Hernandez, who crushed a misplaced slider for a solo home run in the fourth and and shot a two-out single up the middle to drive home Freddie Freeman in the sixth.
The runs were the first Snell has allowed in 18 innings since returning from the injured list and only the seventh of his career in six starts at Dodger Stadium. In 17 career starts against the Dodgers (including postseason), Snell possesses a 2.62 ERA and the lowest opponent’s batting average of anyone with at least 15 career starts.
“I think my sequences still need to get better, understanding just the feel that I had throughout the game, trusting it. But I’m getting there,” said Snell, who lowered his ERA to its lowest point in nine starts this season at 5.83. “I still think there’s a better version of me still coming. It’s hard to say without giving stuff away, but I’m definitely going to keep getting better.”
Making his major-league debut, Snell’s opponent, River Ryan, 25, hadn’t thrown more than 80 pitches in any of his minor-league starts, but the Giants allowed him to pitch into the sixth without issue, failing to score more than three runs for their fourth straight game since the All-Star break.
Once again, it was Tyler Fitzgerald who provided a good portion of the Giants’ offense, slugging a solo home run off the first pitch he saw from reliever Ryan Yarbrough that briefly evened the score at 2 after Hernandez had given the Dodgers a 2-1 lead the previous inning.
Receiving his third straight start at shortstop, Fitzgerald continued to reward Melvin for penciling his name into the lineup. The homer was his third in as many games — four in four games predating the All-Star break, the first Giants batter to do that since Brandon Belt in 2018 — and he has four hits in eight at-bats since the All-Star break.
“He’s playing with a lot more confidence and a lot calmer now that he knows he’s going to be here and get more playing time,” Melvin said. “Since we made a move at shortstop with (Nick) Ahmed, he’s been a lot more secure in his time here.”
Fitzgerald was also at the center of the eighth inning defensively, ranging behind the bag at second base to name a would-be base hit and flipping the ball from his glove (and the seat of his pants) to Brett Wisely, who fired too late to first base as the runner, Will Smith, popped up in front of him.
The Giants asked the umpires to review if Smith violated the clear-path rule, which would have automatically ruled the runner at first out and ended the inning with the score still tied, but it was unsuccessful and Melvin acknowledged after the fact, “it was probably a stretch.”
The only run the Giants scored off Ryan came in the fourth, opening an initial 1-0 lead, when catcher Will Smith wasn’t able to corral a fastball off the plate, allowing LaMonte Wade Jr. to scoot home from third base. But left with two men still on base after Patrick Bailey’s single and Matt Chapman’s bases on balls, the Giants were unable to make any more of the scoring opportunity as Mike Yastrzemski went down swinging to end the inning.
Even hard contact was hard to come by, averaging only 82.5 mph on the balls put in play against Ryan. It wasn’t until Ryan’s final batter of the night, Patrick Bailey, ripped a single to the foot of the wall at 101.8 mph that the Giants notched a triple-digit exit velocity.
“He’s gonna be a problem. That’s one of the better sliders I’ve seen,” Fitzgerald said. “It’s real sneaky. It’s 90-92 (mph) as a slider. So when he throws it early in the count, it looks just like a heater. … We didn’t have too much info on him. We saw a couple of his minor league games, but hopefully the next time we see him we’ll have a better gameplan.”
Bailey’s hit, one of three times on base, gave the Giants runners at the corners with one out, but Dodgers manager Dave Roberts called on lefty Alex Vesia, who won his matchups with Luis Matos, pinch-hitting for Michael Conforto, and Matt Chapman, who both struck out swinging.
After being held to nine runs over their three-game series in the hitter’s paradise of Coors Field, the Giants’ challenge to come up with timely hits followed them back to sea level, where they were greeted by high temperatures in the 90s and 77-degree conditions by the 7:11 p.m. first pitch.
In six chances with runners in scoring position, the Giants couldn’t muster a single hit and stranded five men on base. Since arriving in Denver from the All-Star break, they are 2-for-19 in those situations and have stranded 21 runners.
“We’ve had bouts with (runners in scoring position) all year,” Melvin said. “We’d been a little better with it recently, but since the break, it’s the difference in games like that. We’ve got to cash in on some of those opportunities like they did.”
The Dodgers honored the late Willie Mays in a pregame ceremony that featured his son, Michael, and a video of Vin Scully reciting the story of “the best catch I’ve ever seen,” while both teams lined up on the foul line. Addressing the crowd, Mays said, “This is crazy. Because I’m surrounded in blue. I had this nightmare when I was 15 years old. It’s a classy organization to do something like this.”
RHP Jordan Hicks (4-6, 3.79) will make one of his final starts before transitioning to the bullpen, opposed by RHP Landon Knack (1-2, 3.23). First pitch is scheduled for 7:10 p.m.
