Young Dodgers spoil excellent start by Giants’ Ty Blach
Dodgers look to dominate for quite awhile
LOS ANGELES >>
It is undeniable that the Dodgers have more talent than the Giants this season.
It is indigestion to realize that their two best position players are 22 and 23.
The Dodgers built their 2-1 victory on the backs of babes Saturday afternoon: 23-year-old Corey Seager doubled twice and 22-yearold Cody Bellinger twice singled him home, spoiling an otherwise Spartan seven innings from Ty Blach.
The Giants could comfort themselves with the knowledge that they had the pitching to win, they have played the Dodgers tough this season — they are 6-6 against them — and they even threatened in the ninth against Kenley Jansen.
They amassed three baserunners against the Dodgers’ All-Star closer, but Hunter Pence grounded into a double play and Jaegyun Hwang struck out as the Giants lost their second consecutive game here and fell 33½ back in the National League West.
Any other comforts are cold. The facts are these: the Dodgers are 38-6 since June 7, which is the best 44-game stretch by a major league club since the 1942 Cardinals. They are cruising to what will be a fifth consecutive NL West title — the longest stretch by any team since the Phillies in 2007-11.
But those Phillies got old fast, and the Giants watched the first wrinkles form while upending them in the 2010 NLCS. The Phillies are still paying for their refusal to rebuild.
By the time these Bellinger/Seager Dodgers are done, they might well rank up there with a different franchise: the Atlanta Braves who won 14 consecutive division titles beginning in 1991.
That is what the Giants are up against: a franchise that has displayed a rare ability to win and develop at the same time, that has deep-pocketed owners along with a front office that uses their largesse to amplify their small-market borne philosophies on efficiency and innovation rather than abandon them.
There’s a new sign on the door of the former visiting clubhouse: “Los Angeles Dodgers Baseball Operations Research and Development Department.” We can only assume they make Everlasting Gobstoppers and Chris Taylors in there.
The Dodgers might decorate their roster in creative ways, but Seager and Bellinger are the heavy pieces of furniture in the room.
It is a wonder to watch them swing the bat in a manner that appears both aggressive and cerebral — a flash of lacquered lumber that whips through the zone and yet also stays in that zone for an inordinate amount of time.
Hitters often talk of seeing pitches deep, letting them travel. Seager and Bellinger make them travel.
It is even more stunning to watch them when you are accustomed to seeing the Giants swing the bat all season. They are high beams in the rear view mirror on a darkened stretch of road.
But a talent gap alone cannot explain the 33½game chasm that has opened between the Giants and Dodgers this season. There has to be something more at work: not only how these two organizations have sought to acquire talent, but how they seek to deploy it.
One element couldn’t have been more clear Saturday afternoon: the Dodgers did not push starter Rich Hill past the sixth inning, and the Giants asked more of Blach.
Hill was brilliant. He gave up just two hits in 5 2/3 innings, including a solo home run to Pence in the fourth, and he had thrown a reasonable 86 pitches. But Dodgers manager Dave Roberts took him no further.
The Dodgers matched up from there, and it helped that Denard Span’s line drive found Bellinger’s first baseman’s mitt in the eighth inning. It also helped to have Jansen available to walk from the bullpen like a bear on its hind legs and put the game in a sleeper hold when he got Hwang to chase a pitch.
Blach was just as brilliant. He threw his changeup to get end-ofthe-bat nubbers from righthanded hitters. He used his athleticism to make a jumping-jack catch of a chopper and throw to the plate to start a 1-2-3 double play in the first inning.
“Ty Blach did a great, job a terrific job, in this park against that club,” Giants manager Bruce Bochy said. “The pitching was there today.”
• The Giants moved up Madison Bumgarner to start Sunday’s series finale at Dodger Stadium on regular rest. Matt Cain will start Monday at Oakland.