Vogelsong tagged for four homers

Dodgers belt three in the first inning

LOS ANGELES — It could be worse for Ryan Vogelsong. He has his health, relatively speaking.

The next most important thing is opportunity. He has that, too. But perhaps only by default.

Vogelsong won’t lose his place in the rotation even after he served up four home runs to the first 11 batters he faced Wednesday night, preventing the Giants from seizing a rare off night from Zack Greinke in a 7- 3 loss to the Los Angeles Dodgers. Vogelsong has served up

1 eight homers in just 19 ⁄ innings

3 this season. The only major league pitcher who has allowed more, the Dodgers’ Brandon McCarthy, is being prepped for Tommy John surgery.

The Giants do not have a surplus of healthy starting pitchers while Matt Cain and Jake Peavy are on the disabled list. The double whammy: They do not have a deep reservoir of effective starters, either.

Even though

Madison

FRIDAY’S GAME

L. A. Angels ( C. J. Wilson 1- 2) at Giants ( Chris Heston 2- 2), 7: 15 p. m. CSNBA Bumgarner outdueled Clayton Kershaw a night earlier, the Giants had scant chance to take a series from their archrivals after what they received from Tim Lincecum and Vogelsong in the other two games.

Yet Giants manager Bruce Bochy will load those same five starters into the dice cup when the club begins its homestand Friday.

“Yeah, well, right now we need him,” said Bochy, asked about Vogelsong’s role. “We’ll talk as always. It’s tough when you’ve got two other starters on the D. L. We need all these guys to pitch well and hopefully give us a quality start.”

Correlations don’t come much clearer: The Giants were 2- 0 on their rain- abbreviated road trip when they received a quality start. They were 0- 3 when they lacked it.

Vogelsong lasted three innings and matched his career high for homers allowed after giving up shots to Joc Pederson, Adrian Gonzalez, Andre Ethier and Jimmy Rollins. He became the first Giants pitcher to allow four home runs in a game at Dodger Stadium since Kevin Correia ( a current Giants farmhand!) in 2003.

“He lived in the nitro zone, and they took advantage of it,” Bochy said. “He’s coming off a good start, and I’m trying to get him on a roll. He’s earned that with the big games he’s pitched for us. But today the ball was just up.”

The Dodgers did not need to study Vogelsong the first time through the lineup. They had all the glimpse they needed six days earlier, when the right- hander limited them to three hits ( two homers) in six innings at AT& T Park — a quality start that he was able to remit for another shot in the rotation.

In his last two starts against the Dodgers, he has allowed eight hits — six of them home runs.

“Yeah, that’s probably not too good, huh?” Vogelsong said. “I don’t think ‘ frustrated’ is the word. I know if I keep the ball in the ballpark, I’ll be all right. That’s a matter of getting the ball down a little better and maybe mixing things up a little better.” Giants starter Ryan Vogelsong gave up three first- inning home runs — to Joc Pederson, left, Adrian Gonzalez, center, and Andre Ethier — and four total in his three innings of work.

Pederson led off the game by mashing a curveball into the right field pavilion. Gonzalez hit another breaking ball into the seats. Then after Scott Van Slyke drew a two- out walk, Ethier drove a first- pitch fastball over the fence for a 4- 1 lead.

Rollins led off the third with a home run, and the Dodgers added a sixth and final run to Vogelsong’s three- inning ledger with a sacrifice fly.

This was a night when a quality start might have been all the Giants needed. Greinke entered 5- 0 with a 1.99 ERA in seven career starts against them, but he made an uncharacteristic number of mistakes over the middle, the Giants used a patient approach to run up his pitch count, and Brandon Crawford hit a two- run homer in the fourth.

Yet Greinke limped through the sixth and remained undefeated against the Giants — a set of circumstances that bothered Vogelsong more than any of the four pitches that the Dodgers parked.

Vogelsong said he was upset with himself because Greinke “wasn’t on top of his game. He stayed in there and did what he needed to do. But I don’t think disappointed is the word.”

Justin Maxwell made a highlight play on Greinke’s sinking line drive off George Kontos in the fourth, catching it while sliding on his stomach to render it a sacrifice fly instead of a two- run single.

Maxwell made the most difficult catch of the night, but Ethier made a bigger impact with his play in the second inning. He made a diving catch on Joe Panik’s drive to right- center, barely holding the ball in the webbing to strand two runners who would have scored.

The Giants are making n a rare change to one of the most tenured coaching staffs in baseball. Joe Lefebvre, the former hitting coach who returned to the major league staff in 2011 as an assistant to Hensley Meulens, is stepping down to return to a pro scouting role. Giants G. M. Bobby Evans said that Steve Decker, the club’s minor league coordinator of hitting instruction, will be elevated to the major league staff as assistant hitting coach.

The Giants have scored the second- fewest runs among N. L. clubs, but Evans said the team’s performance did not impact the decision.