Giants lose; lead down to 1 game in West.
Loss shrinks West lead to one game over L.A.
SAN FRANCISCO >> At home and on the road, in day games and in night games, and in each individual month of the 2021 season, the Giants have won with remarkable consistency.
The Giants owned MLB’s best record at the All-Star break, have gone 40-21 in the second half of the season and are 10 games above .500 in September as they march toward the playoffs while pursuing a new San Francisco-era record for victories.
In most circumstances, the Giants’ remarkable dominance would set the stage for an anticlimactic ending to the regular season, but a 3-0 loss to the Atlanta Braves on Sunday was the latest reminder the club is headed for a photo finish.
With the Dodgers securing an 8-5 win over the Reds in Cincinnati, the Giants’ defeat shrunk
their division lead to one game with 12 left to play for the rivals. If the 19 head-tohead matchups between the Giants and Dodgers this season are any indication of what’s to come, the division race won’t be decided until the final day of the schedule and could come down to a Game 163 on Oct. 4.
“I feel like we’ve been playing great baseball, going on a win streak, but they’ve just been matching us,” right fielder Kris Bryant said. “And that’s annoying. It’s annoying that both of us are playing good at the same time. But hey, people expected the Dodgers to be doing that and we’ve just got to keep our head down and try our best not to scoreboard watch.”
Even amid one of the greatest regular seasons in franchise history, every Giants loss has massive ramifications because of the huge postseason advantage the NL West winner will gain from avoiding a one-game wild card game and Sunday’s defeat was no different.
The Giants’ offense was shut out for the first time since the Braves beat San Francisco 9-0 in a series finale at Truist Park on Aug.
29. Braves lefty Max Fried became the fourth starter to throw at least seven shutout innings at Oracle Park against the Giants this season as he joined Dodgers righty Walker Buehler, A’s lefty Cole Irvin and Cardinals lefty Kwang-Hyun Kim.
“Fried was nasty,” Gabe Kapler said. “That was as good of a start as we’ve seen all year and he just executed his breaking ball at will in the zone, out of the zone, had good life to all of his pitches and I think this is one where you tip your cap.”
Giants starter Anthony DeSclafani pitched well, but the team’s lineup and its defense behind him did the veteran right-hander no favors. The Braves won behind a tworun homer from Adam Duvall and a big day from Eddie Rosario, who hit a seventh-inning solo shot en route to becoming the second player to ever hit for the cycle at Oracle Park and the first since A’s outfielder Eric Byrnes accomplished the feat on June 29, 2003.
DeSclafani recorded his third quality start of the month on Sunday, but the outing ended on a sour note as he walked off the mound in the seventh inning after giving up the go-ahead, two-run home run to Duvall.
“Today I put our team in a losing spot and that’s what ultimately matters right now,” DeSclafani said. “Not being able to throw up a zero just hurt. Everything is magnified, but we’re good at putting games behind us.”
After throwing six scoreless innings to begin the game, DeSclafani surrendered a 390-foot double to Austin Riley to open the seventh before Duvall crushed a slider over the middle of the plate over the Giants’ bullpen in left center field. The home run brought a hasty end to the day for DeSclafani, but the Braves wasted little time adding onto their lead as Rosario hit the first pitch from reliever Zack Littell out to right field for a solo homer.
The Giants didn’t do much to help DeSclafani, who gave up three extra-base hits on flyballs that Bryant and center fielder Austin Slater had good chances to track down. In the fifth inning, Rosario hit a long flyball to right center field that hung up long enough to give Bryant a chance to run underneath it and make a play, but the Giants’ right fielder slowed up as he reached the warning track and let the ball fall for a triple.
“Today looking at those two flyballs, it’s a learning experience for me and knowing the next time to put your head down and run, get to a spot and I’ll be better for it next time,” Bryant said.
Bryant’s performance Sunday was his worst in a Giants uniform to date, as he struggled in right field and twice struck out looking including once with a runner in scoring position and again to close out the loss against Braves lefty Will Smith.