San Francisco Chronicle - (Sunday)
The indignity: L.A. celebrates at AT&T Park
The records and standings did not seem to matter. One team is done for the year, the other still dreams of a parade. The proverbial alien popping into Third and King to probe the earthly phenomenon of baseball could not have discerned which squad was which.
A cloudy Saturday made for great September theater. Joe Panik came alive. Hunter Pence, in probably his penultimate game as a Giant, hit two doubles and added a do-or-die dash home. An offense that seemed stuck on two runs a game at home pounded Clayton Kershaw for five, the worst of his 45 career games against San Francisco.
In the end, the Giants could not stop what manager Bruce Bochy called a “battalion” of talent on the other side and prevent the Dodgers from
scoring five runs in the eighth and ninth innings to win 10-6 and clinch a playoff spot.
The Dodgers also sustained their hopes for a sixth straight National League West title by catching first-place Colorado, which lost to the Nationals on Saturday night.
Manny Machado, whom the Dodgers acquired for just this moment, hit a two-strike, twoout triple off the bricks in right field, against Mark Melancon, to score Chris Taylor and break a 5-5 tie in the eighth.
The Dodgers added four in the ninth against Will Smith.
When Kenley Jensen struck out Alen Hanson to end it, the Dodgers did not celebrate by dancing on the enemy’s infield. They emerged for a standard handshake line, but then had a Champagne celebration in the visiting clubhouse.
“Hopefully next year we can come back healthy and make a playoff push, and we’ll be celebrating, not them,” Giants starter Dereck Rodriguez said after a rough end to a great rookie season.
The Dodgers secured at least the second wild card by eliminating the Cardinals from playoff contention. Their division race with the Rockies will be decided Sunday if one wins and the other loses.
If they remain tied after Game 162, they will meet in Los Angeles on Monday, the winner capturing the West, the loser hitting the road for the wildcard game.
Rodriguez and Kershaw each allowed five runs. Two of Rodriguez’s scored in the fourth inning after he was removed and Kershaw lined a two-run single to right against Ty Blach, a perfect time to avenge Blach’s victory over him on Opening Day in Los Angeles.
Bochy appreciated the Giants’ relentlessness in a game so important to three other National League teams, but not to his own boys.
“I was proud, man. Those guys tried hard to win a ballgame,” Bochy said. “It’s too bad it got away from us in the end.”
Pence found the fountain of youth. His third-inning double set up a two-run Panik single that Joc Pederson short-hopped as he dived. Pence gambled the ball would fall and took off from second base behind Gregor Blanco. Had Pederson caught it, Pence would have been doubled off with no runs scoring.
Two innings later, Pence doubled to score Abiatal Avelino from first base. The rookie blazed his way home for 270 feet and got an aggressive send from third-base coach Ron Wotus.
These games mean a lot to Pence.
“This is our World Series,” he said. “It was electric out there, and the fans always bring it.”
Melancon preserved a 5-5 tie when he inherited the bases loaded and two outs in the seventh and got David Freese to hit a soft liner to second. Melancon was a strike away from getting out of the eighth, too, when he bounced an 0-2 curveball to the backstop and Taylor advanced from first to second base.
With first base open and one of baseball's most dangerous hitters at the plate and Smith ready to face Cody Bellinger if Machado walked, Melancon left a fastball up and Machado crushed it off the bricks for the go-ahead triple.
“He’s a veteran. He knows what he’s doing out there,” Bochy said of Melancon. “He made a mistake and Machado didn’t miss it.”
Henry Schulman is a San Francisco Chronicle staff writer. Email: hschulman@ sfchronicle.com Twitter: @hankschulman