Dodgers pile on eight runs in extra innings to embarrass Giants

Reporting from ORACLE PARK

The San Francisco Giants and Los Angeles Dodgers tangled in tight back-and-forth for 10 innings, before a seven-run 11th sealed a 14-7 Los Angeles victory Saturday afternoon at Oracle Park.

Dodgers catcher Will Smith managed to snatch the game-winning hit with a two-run double in the 11th inning. Flexing one of the best offenses in baseball, Los Angeles immediately kept piling on with a Freddie Freeman RBI double to extend the lead and bury the hatchet.

Heading into extra innings in a 6-6 game, Los Angeles scored the ghost runner in the tenth thanks to a go-ahead sinking-bloop single from shortstop Miguel Rojas off righty Sean Hjelle. The Giants had their chance with the ghost runner in the bottom half of the frame, cashing in when pinch-hitter David Villar nearly crushed a walk-off homer to left, but settled with a booming double off the fence to once again tie it up.

The Giants had a chance for more, loading the bases with one out. As a response, the Dodgers brought an outfielder in to conduct a five-man infield to face Patrick Bailey — an unconventional way of making sure any ball on the ground was reversed into an out. Bailey winded up striking out and Matt Chapman popped out to end the threat.

Coming off a dramatic walk-off victory on Friday night, the Giants were tasked with the incredibly tough assignment of facing current Dodgers ace Tyler Glasnow, who hasn’t been roughed up by many teams in baseball this season.

Glasnow, who is notorious for his high release point and tall, lanky stature on the mound, has given the National League night terrors this season with an exceptionally low hits per nine rate (5.6) and league-leading strikeout per nine rate (12.2). The Giants, however, were able to tag the right-hander for seven hits and five earned runs in three innings of work that left him visibly frustrated on the mound.

Following Heliot Ramos‘ first inning sacrifice fly, the Giants and Dodgers went toe to toe in a game that featured a few lead changes and plenty of noise from the Oracle Park crowd — a fair amount rocking blue and white to indicate their deep fandom for Los Angeles.

Matt Chapman and Jorge Soler both added multi-hit afternoons to their resume — both knocking in a run each, too. Soler’s RBI double knotted up the score at 2-2 in the third and, a few hitters later, the Giants took the lead on Chapman’s slow grounder that Dodgers third baseman Cavan Biggio bobbled in his glove a few times before he ultimately decided to hang onto it. 

The Giants ran a bullpen game against the dangerous Los Angeles offense and started left-hander Erik Miller before handing the ball to Spencer Howard in a bulk-innings role. In his last outing on Monday against the Chicago Cubs, Howard dominated by recording a career-high eight strikeouts while finishing the game and recording a win — the last San Francisco reliever to finish a game pitching at least 4-2/3 innings was Don Robinson on Sept. 28, 1987.

It was different luck for Howard this time around as the righty yielded six earned runs on six hits in just 2-2/3 innings of work, highlighted by Shohei Ohtani‘s 26th homer of the season in the third — a bullet to straightaway center that left his bat at 109.7 mph and traveled an estimated 412 feet. 

Howard departed in a one-run game with the Giants leading 5-4 and rookie fireballer Randy Rodriguez was quick to allow an RBI single from Will Smith and a bases-loaded walk to Freddie Freeman to put the Dodgers ahead once again. 

The lead didn’t stay long as Brett Wisley — the owner of last night’s two-run walk-off homer to defeat the Dodgers in the series opener — ripped a game-tying single up the middle in the sixth to once again tie the score.

Up Next

In the series finale against the Dodgers on Sunday, the Giants will square off against veteran starter James Paxton (7-1, 3.39 ERA). San Francisco has not yet announced a starter.

Notes

Giants legend and hall of famer Orlando Cepeda passed away peacefully at the age of 86, the team announced during the series-opener against the Dodgers on Friday evening. Cepeda, nicknamed “The Baby Bull,” donned the Giants uniform for eight seasons — including beginning his career during the organization’s debut season in San Francisco in 1958 — and quickly became a fan favorite by cementing himself as a powerful offensive force alongside Willie Mays and Willie McCovey. Across the franchise’s history, Cepeda ranks second in batting average, ninth in runs scored, sixth in hits, fifth in homers, fourth in runs batted in and fifth in total bases. He was elected to the Baseball Hall of Fame in Cooperstown by the Veterans Committee in 1999. In his later years, he was a regular at Oracle Park, working with the Giants in an advisory and special assistant role.