SAN FRANCISCO — Matching the mighty Dodgers for all nine innings and then some Saturday afternoon, the Giants couldn’t keep once the game reached its 11th inning and the clock elapsed beyond three and a half hours.
Trading leads seven times over the first 10 innings, the Dodgers ensured there wouldn’t be an eighth lead change with a three-run onslaught against Sean Hjelle in his second inning of work. After intentionally walking Shohei Ohtani, Will Smith cleared the bases with a two-run double, and the Dodgers had doubled their run total by the time it was over to safely hand the Giants a 14-7 loss in the second game of their series at Oracle Park.
Practically all that was left of the announced sellout of 39,663 when the Giants came to bat for their final time was a sea of celebratory Dodger blue.
Hjelle was the Giants’ seventh pitcher of the game, which began with an opener, Erik Miller, who gave them nearly as much length as the Dodgers got out of their traditional starter and staff ace, Tyler Glasnow, who was knocked around for five runs over three innings in his shortest and least effective start of the season.
The Dodgers’ seven runs in the 11th made four-run rallies by each team in the early innings look modest by comparison.
Bringing nine men to the plate, the Giants’ four-run bottom of the third brought an end to Glasnow’s afternoon but was only the beginning of the back-and-forth action. The Dodgers responded with four runs of their own in the top of the fourth, bringing 10 men to bat against Spencer Howard and Randy Rodríguez to reclaim a 6-5 lead.
In all, the two half-innings combined to last 38 minutes while the teams brought up 19 batters, who collected eight hits, drew five walks and scored eight runs.
A day after he walked off their win in the opening game of the series, Brett Wisely tied the score at 6 with a two-out knock off lefty Alex Vesia in the fifth. He didn’t square this one up but rather snuck a broken-bat single into center field, hit softly enough that Matt Chapman was able to race home from second and even the score at 6.
David Villar, entering as a pinch-hitter, extended the game with a double off Daniel Hudson in the 10th to score the Giants’ automatic runner and tie the score at 7.
Keeping the Dodgers at bay from the fifth inning onward, Taylor Rogers, Ryan Walker and Camilo Doval used six strikeouts to strand runners in all but one inning. With the would-be go-ahead run at second base each time, Walker and Doval sent down the duo of Teoscar Hernandez and Andy Pages in consecutive at-bats.
In a game that featured 11 Giants hits and all but one member of their lineup reaching base safely at least once, Chapman had the most productive day of any San Francisco batter, doubling his first time up, adding a pair of singles and drawing a walk to put the potential winning run on base to lead off the bottom of ninth.
Chapman, however, merely represented one of 14 runners the Giants left on base in a string of mistakes and missed chances they were sure to regret.
In 20 opportunities with runners in scoring position, the Giants came through only five times, perhaps no missed chance stung as much as the one in the bottom of the 10th, after Villar drove in the tying run and they loaded the bases with only one out.
Patrick Bailey struck out, and Chapman popped out on the first pitch of his at-bat to end the inning with just one run to show for it.
Trying to steal third after doubling to lead off the second, Chapman took off too early and was caught between the bases by Glasnow, who fired to third baseman Cavan Biggio, who applied the tag for the first out of the inning — especially painful when the next batter, Michael Conforto, would have traded places with him with a double of his own.
The Giants scored four runs the next inning, but it could have been five if not for Soler getting thrown out after his second double of the day. When LaMonte Wade Jr. grounded a ball to short, Soler bolted for third, where he was dead to rights when Miguel Rojas recognized what the lead runner was doing in front of him.
Notable
LHP Blake Snell (groin) will make one more rehab start before he is slotted back into the Giants’ rotation. Snell will pitch Wednesday for Triple-A Sacramento, lining him up to return to the rotation for the first game of their final home stand before the All-Star break.
In three innings for the River Cats on Friday, Snell allowed three runs on four hits while striking out six and walking one, throwing 41 of his 62 pitches for strikes.
Also making a rehab start Friday for Single-A San Jose, LHP Robbie Ray threw 48 pitches while tossing 3⅔ scoreless innings. He and RHP Alex Cobb, who makes his first rehab start Sunday in San Jose, are both expected back sometime after the All-Star break.
Up next
Listing their starter as “TBA,” the Giants plan to use another opener in the series finale against LHP James Paxton (7-1, 3.39). First pitch is scheduled for 1:05 p.m.
