SF Giants: David Villar's two homers are the bright spot in 7-3 loss to Dodgers
The SF Giants dropped the rubber match of their series against the Dodgers 7-3 on Wednesday afternoon. While rookie infielder David Villar blasted a pair of homers, a tired Giants bullpen was unable to keep the Dodgers lineup contained.
Giants starter Alex Cobb was playing with fire all game. Home plate umpire Todd Tichenor had a tight strike zone, particularly with two strikes, that caused Cobb throughout his outing. There were several two-strike pitches that easily could have been called strikes that were instead called balls. Cobb lost some of those hitters, walking them, and his pitch count soared.
Cobb managed the tightrope act for most of his outing. He escaped a bases loaded nobody out jam in the bottom of the second and stranded a pair of baserunners in the third and fourth without allowing a run. However, with a tired Giants bullpen, he was unable to work as long as the team was hoping heading into the game.
Dodgers starter Clayton Kershaw, on the other hand, cruised through his first four innings of work before the Giants finally got the scoring started in the top of the fifth. Mike Yastrzemski improved his already solid lifetime numbers against Kershaw with a lead-off single. Then, Villar blasted a hanging 2-2 slider from Kershaw more than 400' for his second homer of the series.
The Giants 2-0 lead was immediately in jeopardy in the bottom of the fifth, though. Cobb once again found himself in a jam, and this time was unable to escape. Freddie Freeman and Max Muncy singled to start the inning and the Dodgers had two runners on with nobody out. Cobb surrendered a three-run homer to Justin Turner that put the Dodgers ahead 3-2.
Cobb retired Trayce Thompson after the homer and then Giants manager Gabe Kapler brought Yunior Marte in to finish out the inning. Marte went one inning, allowing a hit and walk, and was replaced by southpaw Alex Young, who got the final two outs in the sixth.
Dodgers manager Dave Roberts pulled Kershaw after six innings. Despite the two-run homer, the veteran southpaw was magnificent. He allowed just five hits and induced 18 swinging strikes from Giants hitters, finishing with nine strikeouts and zero walks.
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Dodgers left-handed reliever Justin Bruihl entered in the seventh and with one out, Villar returned to the plate and blasted a first-pitch cutter out to center field for his second homer of the game to tie things up at three.
Later in the inning, Luis González singled off Bruihl and Roberts decided to make a change, turning to righty Evan Phillips with lefty masher Lewis Brinson coming to the plate. Kapler countered by pinch-hitting Joc Pederson who drew a walk before Phillips retired Wilmer Flores to end the inning.
The Giants asked Zack Littell to throw multiple innings and while Phillips retired the Giants without allowing a run in his second inning of work, Littell immediately found himself in trouble. He surrendered a single to Austin Barnes to lead off the inning and two batters later Trea Turner lined a double to the left-field wall that brought him around to score.
Already trailing 4-3, Kapler decided to save southpaw Scott Alexander with Freeman and Muncy due up. The Dodgers made the Giants pay. Freeman walked on seven pitches and Muncy blasted a three-run homer to put the game out of reach.
At that point, Kapler brought in Luis Ortiz, a former first-round pick and top 100 prospect who the Giants promoted from Triple-A earlier in the day, to finish out the inning. Ortiz retired the Dodgers' final two batters on three pitches.
Villar worked a lead-off walk against Alex Vesia in the ninth, but Vesia retired the next three hitters to end the inning.
The SF Giants drop to 65-70 after the loss and are 9.0 games back of the final wild-card spot in the National League. They will travel to Milwaukee for a doubleheader against the Brewers tomorrow. Jakob Junis will start the first game and Kapler hinted the team will add right-handed pitcher Sean Hjelle to the roster. Hjelle seems like a strong candidate to start the second game tomorrow.
