Dodgers get back into the swing of things in Game 2

The good news for the Los Angeles Dodgers as they clung to a one-run lead in the sixth inning Saturday night in Game 2 of the National League Division Series was that they loaded the bases with one out. The bad news was Cody Bellinger and AJ Pollock were due up next.

San Francisco Giants manager Gabe Kapler pulled starter Kevin Gausman for Dominic Leone to give time for the tension to accumulate at Oracle Park. It was the biggest moment of the Dodgers’ season, a chance to pad their cushion to avoid the dreaded 0-2 best-of-five series hole.

Bellinger and Pollock were a combined 0 for 9 with seven strikeouts in the series up to that point. Bellinger was two for 53 with 25 strikeouts against the Giants this season. Pollock was nine for 61 with 22 strikeouts in his postseason career as a Dodger.

All that history became obsolete in a flash. Bellinger lined the first pitch he saw to the wall in left-center field for a two-run double. Pollock then matched Bellinger, ripping the next pitch to left field to trade places and put the Dodgers on track to a 9-2 win.

The sudden blows deflated the rowdy ballpark. By the end of the inning, after two defensive gems parried the Giants’ counterpunch, fans in orange and black started streaming for the exits. The Dodgers drove more disappointed people out of the building by the bay when they pounded the Giants bullpen for three more runs in the eighth inning. The tightly contested clash became a laugher in minutes.

A night after the Dodgers’ sixth through eighth hitters

went 0-for-9 with five strikeouts, Dodgers manager Dave

Roberts made changes to the lineup, putting Chris Taylor in center field and batting him sixth. Bellinger moved to first base and hit seventh. Pollock hit eighth. The adjustment paid dividends — the Dodgers’ sixth to eighth batters combined to go 5-for-11 with two walks, including Taylor’s sixpitch walk in the sixth inning to fill the bases for Bellinger. The clubs will play Game 3 today at Dodger Stadium, where the hosts have won 16 straight games. Former Dodger Alex Wood will take the mound for the Giants opposite Max Scherzer.

“It’s a good feeling,” Roberts said. “... It’s a threegame series, we got homefield advantage, we got Max on the mound. I like where we’re at.”

The five-run margin built on Bellinger and Pollock’s doubles felt tenuous in the bottom of the sixth. Joe Kelly, summoned from the bullpen to replace Julio Urías, issued a one-out walk to Lamonte Wade Jr. before Buster Posey poked a single to right field. The Giants, authors of so many late-inning magic shows in 2021, were setting up another one. Then the Dodgers’ defense abruptly quashed that momentum.

Second baseman Trea Turner supplied the first gem, a sliding stop on Wilmer Flores’ ground ball up the middle that would’ve scored a run had it gotten through. Instead, Turner flipped the ball to shortstop Corey Seager at second base for the second out.

Two pitches later, Brandon Crawford flared a single to shallow right field. Wade easily scored, but Mookie Betts played the ball off the hop, spun and launched a laser to third base where Justin Turner applied the tag on Flores to end the season-changing inning.

“Sometimes you just do things you can’t really explain,” Betts said, “and that was one of them.”