LOS ANGELES — A night worth forgetting.
Landen Roupp recorded five outs and allowed six runs, turning in the shortest ever start. Shohei Ohtani hit the 249th and 250th home runs of his career. Clayton Kershaw turned back the clock and pitched seven shutout innings. The result was the Giants’ worst loss of the season, an 11-5 blowout at the hands of the Los Angeles Dodgers that knocked them down to second place in the NL West.
“I just don’t think I had anything working for me,” Roupp said. “I just could not find the zone with really anything, and then when I did, it got hit hard. I take full responsibility for the game tonight. You can’t expect the offense to come out swinging after that kind of start. Just have to regroup and be better next time.”
Before a ridiculous ninth inning, San Francisco was looking at its worst margin of defeat this year.
With Los Angeles leading 11-0, Dodgers manager Dave Roberts sent out position player Enrique Hernández to pitch the game’s final frame. Manager Bob Melvin did the same in the previous half inning by handing the bottom of the eighth to backup catcher Logan Porter, the more conventional time to deploy a position player to pitch.
Hernández, making his ninth career pitching appearance, recorded his first career strikeout by freezing Christian Koss with an 86.9 mph fastball after two “eephus” pitches. The remaining fans Dodger Stadium erupted in support of the fan favorite.
Following that strikeout, San Francisco mounted a faux comeback. Casey Schmitt launched a lob from Hernández into the left-field bleachers for his second grand slam in as many days, becoming the first Giant in franchise history to hit a grand slam in back-to-back games. Two singles and a throwing error later, Roberts pulled Hernández in favor of Anthony Banda — a real pitcher.
Banda did what Hernández could not: finish the game. He got Jung Hoo Lee to ground out, and the ballgame was over. It wasn’t the Giants’ worst loss by margin of defeat, but the game’s first eight innings painted a more appropriate picture than the final score.
“I don’t run that. They do what they do,” said manager Bob Melvin. “I pitched a position player too, but I’ve never done it in an up game.”
This loss marks only the third time this year that San Francisco has lost a game by at least five runs, the other two defeats being on April 22 against the Milwaukee Brewers (11-3) and May 5 against the Chicago Cubs (9-2). In those two losses, though, the Giants were competitive for most of the game before things snowballed.
Saturday, though, was a wire-to-wire defeat.
With San Francisco trailing 10-0 heading into the bottom of the eighth, manager Bob Melvin sent out backup catcher Logan Porter to pitch the eighth inning. Porter, the second position player to pitch for the Giants this season, allowed a solo homer to Miguel Rojas.
Roupp began his evening by allowing a solo home run to Ohtani, a swing by the three-time MVP that put the Giants in an early 1-0 deficit. Ohtani’s solo shot was the extent of the Dodgers’ offense in the first inning, but the following frame saw Los Angeles post a true crooked number.
The right-hander began his second inning with back-to-back walks. Andy Pages doubled the Dodgers’ lead to 2-0 with an RBI single, then former Giant Michael Conforto drove in a run of his own with an RBI double to make the lead 3-0.
Roupp recorded the first out of the second when Hyeseong Kim lined out, but Mookie Betts drove in two runs with a double after the Giants decided to intentionally walk Ohtani. Roupp walked Freddie Freeman, allowed a sacrifice fly to Will Smith and his night was over with the Giants trailing 6-0.
“I’ve been throwing well. Tonight was definitely a rough one, but we’ll get back to it and get back to work,” said Roupp, who had a 1.88 ERA in his last starts entering play. “We’ll get back to work midweek in my bullpen and figure out what I was doing wrong and come back better.”
With Roupp failing to complete two innings, Melvin called upon right-hander Spencer Bivens to eat innings and save the bullpen. Bivens obliged, allowing one run over a season-high 3 1/3 innings.
“He’s done stuff like that for us since he’s gotten here. … I was really even going to take him out an inning early and he said, ‘I’ve got whatever you need,’ so he went out there for an extra inning,” Melvin said. “That’s just kind of who Spencer is.”
With a healthy lead, Kershaw turned in a vintage outing. For Kershaw, it was his first time completing seven innings since June 20, 2023. Kershaw trimmed his career ERA against the Giants to an even 2.00 over 61 games (59 starts), the lowest of any National League opponent.
“He had a good slider today. Probably threw a few more curveballs than he normally throws, but got ahead with the fastball,” Melvin said. “We didn’t have much for him. Weird game.”
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