Bumgarner superb, but Dodgers beat up bullpen in 11th.
Bumgarner holds L.A. scoreless for seven innings but Giants stunned in 11 on game-winner by Dodger making big-league debut
Losing Madison Bumgarner for three months didn’t wreck the Giants’ season on its own. Their organizational steering was so badly bent out of alignment before Bumgarner flew off his dirt bike in April.
But Bumgarner’s separated shoulder made it that much harder for the Giants to correct course. It made it harder for them to take the field with an ornery confidence. It made it easier to accept what was happening to them, instead of calf-roping their self-doubts and tying them down.
Bumgarner is back now, and it was no coincidence that the Giants moved him up to start Sunday’s 3-2, 11-inning stunner of a loss at Dodger Stadium. Their ownership insists they will try to contend in 2018, and symbolically and psychologically, that battle must begin now. The deeper the hole you’re in, the sooner you should think about starting to dig.
They are historically deep now. Their 34½-game deficit is the farthest they’ve been out of first place since the final day of the 1946 season under manager Mel Ott. You might recognize the comment that Brooklyn’s Leo Durocher supposedly made about that skipper and that team: “Nice guys finish last.”
These current Giants are a pleasant enough group. They also keep falling deeper in the standings, even
on nights when they receive so many essentials to win.
Bumgarner dug down, and so did his mates even after the Dodgers eked across a run in the ninth off Sam Dyson to send the game to extra innings. Kelby Tomlinson lined a pinch single in the 11th, stole second base, got a huge jump to advance on a ground out and scored on Joe Panik’s little jamshot single up the middle.
But against these Dodgers, in this season, what is the use? They are a team of destiny. There can be no doubt after the way they won their 47th home game out of 60.
They turned to a backup catcher making his major league debut, and Kyle Farmer lined the two-run double off Albert Suarez that sent Chavez Ravine into shrieking ecstasy.
First career save
Suarez was attempting to record his first career save, and it was a toughie. He had to go through the middle of the Dodgers lineup, and Corey Seager connected for a one-out double. Giants manager Bruce Bochy made the unconventional but obvious choice to intentionally walk Justin Turner, the NL’s leading hitter, for a rookie in his first at-bat.
“I would’ve gone with Albert every time there,” Bochy said. “I was confident with him out there. He’s got good poise and good stuff.”
Of course it ended with the Dodgers in back-slapping guffaws. This season, what other outcome can there be?
The Giants were left to square up their 6-7 record against the Dodgers this season, including three tightly contested losses here decided by just four runs, with the gulf they face in the standings.
“It is what it is,” Bumgarner said. “I try to be a realist, and that’s what it is. I try to keep it simple: try to win today. That’s the only thing that can turn it around.”
Can winning now, especially against the Dodgers, start a turnaround in 2018?
“Well yeah, for sure,” Bumgarner said. “It’s funny how that solves all kinds of problems. It’s easy to sit back and point fingers and say where we need to improve and whatever. But all you’ve got to do is win and all that goes away.”
Bumgarner held the Dodgers without a run for seven innings and received help from a familiar source to break a scoreless tie. Conor Gillaspie reprised his role from last year’s NL wild-card game in New York, hitting a pinch home run in the eighth.
In a close game, though, they say your weaknesses will find you. And the Dodgers had so many to exploit in the ninth, they hardly knew where to start.
Begin with Gillaspie requiring a third crow hop after fielding Chase Utley’s ground ball toward third base, which allowed even a 38-year-old’s legs to beat the late throw across the diamond. Continue with Dyson paying scant attention to the smartest baserunner of his generation, as Utley stole second base ahead of Buster Posey’s throw.
And move along to Yasiel Puig’s single up the middle, when there was never a doubt Utley would challenge a weakarmed center fielder. Denard Span didn’t attempt a throw to the plate. There was no point.
Then contrast that play with the one that the Dodgers’ Kiké Hernandez made in the seventh inning, when he caught Brandon Crawford’s fly ball in medium center and made such a strong throw on a line that it arrived 10 feet ahead of Panik.
Record 6 DPs
It was one of six double plays that the Dodgers turned, setting a franchise record. And the Giants couldn’t score in seven innings against struggling left-hander Hyun-jin Ryu. But this was a rare night when the Giants had the pitching to stay competitive.
Bumgarner wouldn’t say whether he lobbied Bochy to move up in the rotation.
“I wasn’t going to turn it down, that’s for sure,” Bumgarner said.
Bumgarner was making just his fourth start since returning from the disabled list, and this was his best: he threw 99 pitches while holding the Dodgers’ deep lineup to five singles and a walk in seven innings.
Who could have foreseen it? At the end of the night, Suarez and Farmer provided the matchup that a jubilant crowd will long remember.
Bumgarner was asked about the Dodgers’ prospects at winning the World Series.
“We’re a long way from the World Series,” he said.
Yes, we are.