Dodgers shut out Giants for second game in a row.
LOS ANGELES — For all the words that were consumed, chewed on and spit out ahead of Opening Day, nobody really had a good sense of what the 2018 Giants would be.
The offense was supposed to be better with the addition of three seasoned pros a bit past their salad days, the rotation was thought to be DOA after Madison Bumgarner and Jeff Samardzija got hurt, and Mark Melancon’s health turned the bullpen into a huge question mark.
Anyone who thought the season-opening series at
Dodger Stadium would provide definitive clues had to be disappointed.
The entire series was one fat anomaly, with four straight shutouts, including Sunday night’s 9-0 Dodgers victory.
The makeshift rotation probably will not be able to maintain its 2.42 ERA without Bumgarner, while no sane person can expect the offense to continue apace after a historically bad opening series.
For the first time in franchise history, the Giants failed to score more than once in each of their first four games.
They did not manufacture a run in 36 innings, scoring just twice on Joe Panik solo homers. They were 1-for-28 with runners in scoring position, with the runner not scoring on the hit. The three newcomers — Andrew McCutchen, Austin Jackson and Evan Longoria — went a combined 2-for-43.
The consolation, of course, was the two 1-0 victories that enabled the Giants to return to San Francisco for Tuesday’s home opener with a 2-2 record.
“If you had told me we were going to score two runs and split the series, I’d have been elated,” manager Bruce Bochy said. “I didn’t think it would happen, but it did. They’ll get clicking. It’s a matter of time.”
In one sense, the split felt like a defeat for the Giants. The National League West has a well-defined pecking order, and the Dodgers reminded them who rules the roost by scoring 14 runs over the final two games.
L.A.’s bats were silent, too. Over the first three games, Cody Bellinger, Corey Seager, Yasiel Puig and Logan Forsythe were 0-for-35.
But Bellinger, Seager and Puig combined for six hits Sunday, including a two-run Bellinger homer that capped a four-run sixth against Chris Stratton and Josh Osich, who surrendered the HR.
Meanwhile, McCutchen went 1-for-16, Jackson 1-for-12 and Longoria 0-for-15, and yeah, the third baseman’s goose egg is weighing on him.
“Obviously, it hasn’t been easy sledding for me,” Longoria said. “It’s just a little bit magnified right now, opening series against the Dodgers, on the road, a lot of people looking for me to come out of the gate hot, including myself. I’m not happy with the way that went, but it is what it is.”
Longoria admitted to pressing the more his first hit eluded him. Bochy sees that throughout but insisted his hitters have no cause to press because “we’ve got too much length in this lineup.”
Still, Bochy did not pledge to use the same lineup for the home opener when the Giants face another left-hander, Seattle’s Marco Gonzales. Bochy pointed to a few sheets of Gonzales’ stats on his desk and said he would examine them before deciding.
Most of Sunday’s game did not have a 9-0 feel.
It was 1-0 after five, the Dodgers scoring in the fourth on a defensive mistake by Panik. He waited too long to throw to first during a Puig rundown, allowing Seager to bolt home from third.
The Dodgers were leading 3-0 in the sixth when, with one swing, Bellinger got his first hit and the Dodgers’ first homer of the season, while pinning the first two runs on a Giants bullpen that had started with nine scoreless innings.
The rotation of Ty Blach, Johnny Cueto, Derek Holland and Stratton acquitted itself well. Stratton credited Blach for setting the tone with “five shutties” in the opener. If the starters pitch the same over the next four starts, and the offense rises from its coma, the Giants should do pretty well.
Bochy said he hoped his hitters would relax on their day off Monday and not think about all those zeroes.
Longoria smiled and said, “That’s my plan.”