Dodgers done in by Giants’ scratch run in 2-1 loss

SAN FRANCISCO – It happens in other towns to other teams. Honestly, it does.

It just seems like the San Francisco Giants have a special knack for finding ways to drain the Dodgers of their life blood with a series of paper cuts. The decisive run in Tuesday’s 2-1 loss at AT&T Park is the latest example.

“Flare base hit, the wild pitch then (Buster) Posey gets him over and they get him in. They manufactured a run right there,” Dodgers manager Dave Roberts recapped.

“If you look at some of the quality of contact these first two games, they’ve found some outfield grass when they really haven’t squared the ball up. That’s baseball. But when they do get a guy in scoring position, they manage to manufacture. They do. To their credit, they put the ball in play. You get those guys – Posey and (Brandon) Crawford and (Brandon) Belt – they’ll find a way to put it in play.”

A solo home run by Chris Taylor leading off the top of the sixth tied the score at 1-1, Rich Hill and his work-of-friction middle finger having survived five innings in his most recent return from the DL.

But the Dodgers could do no more against Ty Blach, stranding runners at the corners to end that inning. Like Matt Cain a night earlier, Blach seems to save his best for the Dodgers. In four career games against them (three starts), Blach has a 1.17 ERA (three earned runs in 23 innings).

So the game was still tied when Belt led off the bottom of the sixth with a ground ball onto the outfield grass. With the Dodgers shifted to the right against the left-handed Belt, Taylor got to the ball but fell to the grass and wasn’t able to make a strong throw to first. Belt was safe.

He moved to second on a wild pitch that Austin Barnes couldn’t smother and third when Posey gave himself up, grounding out to the right side. Crawford completed the small-scale vivisection, singling over the drawn-in infield.

The Giants were 1 for 12 with runners in scoring position in the game. Crawford’s single was the lone hit and it was the difference on a night when Roberts tried to make a meal out of the leftovers in his fridge.

The Dodgers manager elected to sit two slumping left-handed hitters – Corey Seager (.216 in May) and Cody Bellinger (7 for his past 32) – against Blach and also gave Yasmani Grandal (a nine-game hitting streak) the night off in advance of Wednesday’s day game.

That left Kike’ Hernandez, Barnes and Yasiel Puig (who dragged a .171 average and .195 slugging percentage against left-handed pitching into the game) to man the middle of the lineup.

It was Hernandez’s first start as a cleanup hitter in his professional career (major leagues or minors) and he at least acquitted himself well, going 2 for 4. But the fifth through ninth spots in the Dodgers’ lineup were a black hole that sucked any air out of the offense. Those spots were a combined 0 for 18, including 0 for 4 with runners in scoring position.

“Yeah, we didn’t get any production down there tonight,” Roberts said. “In Bellinger’s case, playing left field, Guti (Franklini Gutierrez) had a good night. Then you look at Corey and Kike’ swung the bat well. So those two guys that replaced them, played well.

“I don’t know if there’s a whole lot we could have done really.”

On the positive side for the Dodgers (who have now lost 20 of their past 26 at AT&T Park), Hill turned in five solidly-calloused innings. After bouncing a 72-mph curveball off Denard Span’s helmet and committing a balk in his first six pitches of the game, Hill allowed just one run on a solo home run by Belt over his five innings, striking out six.

“The finger was good so there were no issues there,” said Hill, who went on the DL after each of his previous two starts this season. “It’s just good to get back out there, honestly.”