Giants, Webb stifle defending champs
San Francisco P strikes out 10 in Game 1 victory
SAN FRANCISCO — Logan Webb struck out 10 pitching masterfully in his postseason debut, Buster Posey hit a two-run homer that held up, and the 107-win San Francisco Giants blanked the defending World Series champion Los Angeles Dodgers, 4-0, Friday night at Oracle Park in the opener of their National League Division Series.
Those two Giants standouts summed up this year perfectly for the NL West Division champs: A brilliant performance by the young right-hander supported by a veteran catcher who has shined on this big October stage so many times before.
Kris Bryant and Brandon Crawford also homered to back a combined five-hitter by Webb and two relievers.
Everybody knows this matchup between centuryold rivals takes this best-offive playoff series to another level. They finished with baseball’s two best records, the division coming down to the final day as the Dodgers wound up one game back with 106 wins, ending their run of eight consecutive West crowns.
That meant Los Angeles had to get by the Cardinals in the wild-card game Wednesday night then fly straight to the Bay Area.
The Dodgers will try to even the series when they send 20-game winner Julio Urías to the mound for Game 2 on Saturday night opposite
Giants All-Star right-hander Kevin Gausman.
Webb waved his pitching hand walking off to a rousing ovation in the eighth after a two- out single by Mookie Betts. He didn’t walk a batter.
Tyler Rogers relieved for the final out in the eighth and Camilo Doval worked the ninth.
Giants manager Gabe Kapler, making his own playoff debut on the dugout’s top step, had absolute confidence the 24-year-old Webb would shine in the biggest start of his life. Just last Sunday, Webb pitched the Giants past the Padres in the regular-season finale as San Francisco clinched the club’s first division title since 2012. Webb hasn’t lost since May 5 at Colorado.
Featuring a changeup and slider, Webb was in total command.
Tommy La Stella hit two singles and played sparkling defense, getting things started by drawing a fivepitch walk from Buehler in the bottom of the first.
That set things up for Posey, who sat out last year’s coronavirus-shortened season to care for prematurely born adopted twin girls. He clobbered a 3-0 pitch into a water-spraying pillar above the right-field arcade with two outs in the first to send the orange-towel waving sellout crowd of 41,934 into a frenzy.
Kapler said Posey could play every postseason game, and why not? At age 34, the veteran catcher started five of the final six regular-season games and 10 of 13 overall to end the season. This marked his first postseason home run since Game 4 of the 2012 World Series at Detroit off Max Scherzer.