Dodgers 3, Giants 2: L.A. finishes sweep with walk-off.
LOS ANGELES — As baseball’s trade deadline arrives Monday, all who have witnessed the Giants crumble through their season from hell wonder whom the front office might acquire to fix this.
Madison Bumgarner does not want to hear it, does not want to believe the team that dressed in deadly silence after the worst of their 66 losses Sunday night cannot help itself.
“Anytime you’re winning as a team it’s obviously good for everything,” Bumgarner said after the 3-2, 11-inning loss to the Dodgers. “It’s funny how that solves all kinds of problems. It’s easy to point fingers and say what’s got to be done to improve the team. All we’ve got to do is win and that goes away.”
The trick is knowing how to win. The Giants don’t, while the Dodgers don’t know how to lose.
They overcame one-run Giants leads in the ninth and 11th innings to move a staggering 34½ games ahead of the Giants. It’s the Giants largest deficit since the final day of the 1946 season and a half-game worse than where they were the day they lost their 100th game to end 1985.
In a Midas-touch season, the Dodgers figured to deal Sam Dyson his first blown save with the Giants, which was not entirely his fault.
Also a sign of Midas’ handiwork, they won for the 39th time in their last 45 games when catcher Kyle Farmer, in his first moment as a major-league player, lined a two-run double to right with one out in the 11th off Albert Suarez to bring Corey Seager and Justin Turner home with the tying and winning runs.
In a move no manager makes lightly, Bruce Bochy ordered Turner intentionally walked as the potential winning run so Suarez could face a kid in his big-league debut rather than the National League batting leader.
Joe Panik had given the Giants their second lead, at 2-1, with an RBI single in the top half. Dodger Stadium shook from the madness in the stands after Farmer’s hit moments later ended a three-game sweep.
Given the standings, it would be fair to assume the Dodgers obliterated the Giants all weekend. In fact, they outscored San Francisco 11-7. But the only three leads the Giants took disappeared in short order.
“We need to find a way to finish games out, get leads, more offense, putting runs on the board, defense, pitching,” Panik said after the Giants hit into six double plays, five on the ground.
Panik surmised the rivalry heightens the Giants’ fight. But what about the 50 games they have left against everyone else? Don’t the Giants need to come out with the same fight?
“We better,” Panik said. “We’re blessed to be playing in the major leagues. Everyone in here has to bring that energy and that resilience for us to come back.”
Not come back in the standings, but back from baseball’s graveyard.
Bumgarner did his part in a start he wanted, because it was the Dodgers. He pitched his best game of the year, pre- or postbike crash, blanking the Dodgers with seven strikeouts in seven innings.
Conor Gillaspie batted for Jae-Gyun Hwang in the eighth and homered for the game’s first run.
Dyson started the ninth by getting pinch-hitter Chase Utley to hit a soft bouncer to third. Gillaspie crow-hopped before his throw, making it late.
Utley stole second and scored on Yasiel Puig’s single to tie the game 1-1. Dyson did some sorcery to prevent the Dodgers from winning right there, getting Cody Bellinger to fly out with the bases loaded and two outs.
Two months remain, too soon for players to start dreaming of their winter vacation. They have to play to win as if the Dodgers aren’t 34½ games ahead.
“To be this far back is not what you hoped for,” Panik said. “The way you cope is going out the next day and giving all you’ve got because there are 24 other guys giving everything they’ve got, a coaching staff doing everything to prepare us and fans who have been so supportive.”