Subtraction by audition for McCarthy
He pitches Dodgers out of game, and may have pitched himself out of a playoff role.
SAN FRANCISCO — Brandon McCarthy has pitched 221 games in the major leagues, none of them in the postseason. He has played for four teams that appeared in the playoffs, but he never appeared in them.
This would be his fifth chance — not a good chance, but a chance nonetheless. The Dodgers had clinched the National League West, and they offered him an audition Friday, for a spot as a long reliever on the playoff roster.
He is 33, and a dozen years into his major league career. The chances are increasingly precious. This one is all but gone.
After the Dodgers got five solid innings from Rich Hill, they asked McCarthy for a couple more. He could not deliver even one out.
McCarthy faced six batters and gave up six runs, on five hits and a walk. The San Francisco Giants scored seven runs in that sixth inning, good for a 9-3 victory over the Dodgers.
The result was important to the Dodgers, and critical
to the Giants. For the Dodgers, the loss left them with one faint chance for home-field advantage in the division series. Unless the Dodgers win Saturday and Sunday, and the Washington Nationals lose both days, the NLDS opens in Washington next Friday.
For the Giants, the victory kept them one game ahead of the St. Louis Cardinals for the final wild-card spot in the NL. Even better, after ace Madison Bumgarner held the Dodgers to three runs over 71⁄3 innings Friday — beating them for the first time in five tries this season — he is in line to start the NL wild-card game Wednesday on regular rest.
The game was a bit chippy, what with Giants catcher Buster Posey taking exception to something Hill appeared to say and Dodgers reliever Josh Ravin later brushing back Posey. Yasiel Puig and Bumgarner had no words with one another this time, but Puig was one of several players to take exception to the generous strike zone of plate umpire Andy Fletcher.
In the eighth inning, Dodgers reliever J.P. Howell was booed off the field after hitting Giants first baseman Brandon Belt on the hand with a pitch.
Hill, in a final tuneup for what will be his first postseason appearance in nine years, gave up two runs in five innings. Hill finished the regular season with a 2.12 earned-run average in 20 starts overall, and a 1.83 ERA in six starts for the Dodgers.
McCarthy inherited a 3-2 lead to start the sixth. He walked the first batter and then gave up two singles, two doubles and another single. When Ravin relieved him and gave up a three-run home run to Belt, McCarthy had given up six runs on no outs, and his ERA in this injury-delayed and injury-interrupted season rose from 3.60 to 4.95.
Until that crazy sixth inning, the San Francisco fans had one buzz-worthy moment to share.
That occurred in the fourth inning, when a couple of purported animal activists dressed in blue shirts scampered onto the field and attempted to hand flowers to several San Francisco players.
“Two guys coming out onto the field and offering flowers — I guess you could say only in San Francisco,” Vin Scully said on the Dodgers’ broadcast.
Bumgarner waved his glove at one of the intruders, swatting him away like a fly. “Don’t look at me,” read the look in Bumgarner’s eyes.
The interloper then loped toward home plate, where Posey shoved him to the ground. The guy got up, undaunted, and headed to the outfield.
Left fielder Angel Pagan, who had removed his glove, extended his hand as if he were going to accept the flower. Then Pagan grabbed the guy and slammed him to the ground, earning a raucous ovation from the crowd.
“The crowd really applauding a little law enforcement,” Scully said. And, yes, what passed for security at AT&T Park let one intruder get close to three players — and one of the players, not one of the guards, had to wrestle the guy to the ground.
After the inning, as he ran toward the Giants dugout, Pagan got another ovation and doffed his cap.