LOS ANGELES — Without even checking, you know that nobody at UC Irvine has put the 2011 NCAA Charlottesville Super Regional in the past.
At least those Anteaters can look to Dodger Stadium and see that the guy that beat them wasn’t a passerby.
Chris Taylor was the hearbreaker that day, coming up with two out in the bottom of the ninth and getting the two-run single that eliminated UC Irvine, 3-2, and sent Virginia to the College World Series.
“That summer in the Cape Cod League, my roommate was Andrew Thurman, who was a pitcher on that UCI team,” Taylor said. “But we didn’t talk about it too much.”
Taylor became a fifth-round draft choice by Seattle and came to the Dodgers last year in exchange for pitcher Zach Lee. He made a few appearances last season, and he knows the shuttle to Triple-A Oklahoma City works almost non-stop.
But this time Taylor seems intent on engraving a reputation, if not a permanent clubhouse nameplate.
On Wednesday pinch-hitter Taylor stayed compact at the plate and sliced Jeff Samardzija’s fastball down the right field line to score Yasiel Puig. That gave the Dodgers a 1-0 lead in the sixth inning.
San Francisco then tied it in the eighth, keyed by a two-base wild pitch from Ross Stripling, and won it 4-1 in the 11th. That gave the Giants only their third series win of the season, and their second over the Dodgers.
Afterward, Dodgers manager Dave Roberts said Logan Forsythe, the regular second baseman, came out of a rehab game Wednesday with hamstring tightness. That probably means Taylor will gain some more major league time, not that he’s getting it by default.
Taylor is 10 for 30 as a Dodger with a .600 slugging percentage and two home runs. But then he hit .287 in 58 games for the Mariners in 2014, and he was once voted their minor league player of the year.
The Mariners changed regimes before the 2016 season when they hired General Manager Jerry Dipoto, and Taylor made two errors in the only game he played in the field for the big club. The trade happened soon afterward.
“I looked at it as a good opportunity because I was feeling sort of stuck over there,” Taylor said. “It was a fresh start. I kept going up and down between Seattle and (Triple-A) Tacoma, and unfortunately I didn’t have a good spring in front of the new people.
“The way it is here, you see the depth in the organization when people get called up. You have a lot of big-leaguers in Oklahoma City, and they’re ready when the time comes.”
Taylor made way for Chase Utley in Wednesday night’s lineup against Samardzija, who mystified the Dodgers so deeply that you had to keep checking to make sure he wasn’t left-handed.
Samardzija came into this game with an 0-4 record and a 6.32 ERA. But his most recent start, against San Diego, was a good one, and he was averaging more than a strikeout per inning. He gave the Dodgers only three singles, struck out 11 with no walks, and permitted no unearned runs. Puig, whom Taylor drove in, got to third when second baseman Joe Panik ran a long way to catch his no-man’s-land popup and then dropped it just before he crossed the foul line.
“We didn’t get many good swings,” Roberts said.
“He had that cutter working, that slider,” Andrew Toles said. “He didn’t make many mistakes and when he did, we weren’t capitalizing. And then he throws hard anyway, so it’s kind of tough to get that.”
The Dodgers weren’t any more productive against the Giants’ battered bullpen. They did get two men on in the 11th off closer Mark Melancon. Toles beat out a “swinging bunt” to second after a pinch single by Franklin Gutierrez. With Corey Seager up, you could feel a bit of a vibe, and Melancon appeared to fall behind 3-and-1 on a low outside fastball. Umpire Hunter Wendelstedt called it a strike, however, and an exasperated Seager then grounded to third.
San Francisco got the lead when Gorkys Hernandez doubled to left off Grant Dayton. That followed a walk to pinch-hitter Nick Hundley that moved the go-ahead run to second. Kenley Jansen had appeared in the ninth to strike out the side, but Giants manager Bruce Bochy held onto his closer card until he got the lead.
The Giants are suffering their worst start since 1983 and don’t have shortstop Brandon Crawford or dirt-bike hobbyist Madison Bumgarner. But they only have 133 games to figure things out, and the resurgent Matt Cain gives their rotation some hope.
Taylor knows there is always time. In that UCI game, his error in the top of the ninth put Virginia behind. There were two outs, bases empty, and two strikes when the Cavaliers finally got baserunners against Matt Summers and set things up for Taylor.
“A couple of times a year, I’ll look back on what happened that day,” Taylor said. “It’s definitely something I’m not going to forget.”
He’s not alone.