SAN FRANCISCO -- The door was wide open for the Giants to seize control of their own playoff destiny.
The free-falling Mets lost their eighth consecutive game, falling to Bruce Bochy’s Rangers earlier on Saturday night, meaning a win would move the Giants into sole possession of the third National League Wild Card spot for the first time since the morning of July 12.
But just as they appeared poised to take another step forward, they had the door slammed in their faces by their archrivals.
The Giants saw an early three-run lead slip away after ace right-hander Logan Webb was roughed up for a season-high-matching six runs over four-plus innings, resulting in a stinging 13-7 loss to the first-place Dodgers at Oracle Park.
The defeat -- only the Giants’ fifth in their last 19 games -- kept San Francisco a half-game behind the Mets for the final NL playoff spot with 14 games left to play.
"With that team losing, it was kind of in our hands,” Webb said. “I did a bad job today. We’ve just got to try to go out tomorrow and me, personally, just try to cheer on the guys as much as I can to try to win a series.”
It was the second time this season that the Dodgers have scored six runs against Webb. They also hit him hard during their last matchup at Oracle Park on July 11, prompting the two-time All-Star to make some notable tweaks to his pitch mix on Saturday.
Webb typically relies heavily on his sinker, which he’s thrown 34.8% of the time this year and has a +12 Run Value, the highest of any of his offerings, per Statcast. But he threw his most valuable pitch only eight times (8%) against the Dodgers, marking his lowest sinker usage in a single start since July 31, 2020 (8.9%).
Webb attempted to mollify the Dodgers’ offense with a steady diet of sweepers (36%) and changeups (32%), but the game plan proved ineffective, as he ended up yielding 10 hits to the 22 batters he faced.
"I’ve faced these guys, even scouting them, in so many at-bats,” said Webb, who has logged a 7.71 ERA (14 earned runs across 16 1/3 innings) in three starts against the Dodgers this season. “I probably overthought it a little bit today.”
The Dodgers got on the board via Freddie Freeman’s RBI single off Webb in the top of the first, but the Giants immediately countered by scoring four runs off left-hander Clayton Kershaw in the bottom half of the inning.
Kershaw entered Saturday with a 1.69 ERA in 30 career appearances at Oracle Park, but he allowed the Giants to send nine batters to the plate in the 36-pitch first inning, which featured a trio of RBI singles from Willy Adames, Matt Chapman and Luis Matos.
"The feeling was good,” manager Bob Melvin said. “[Kershaw’s] kind of had his way with us, and we got him on the run early. We scored four after giving up a run in the first. We felt pretty good about our chances, especially with Webby on the mound. But he just didn’t have his great stuff today.”
Webb was fired up after working out of a bases-loaded, no-outs jam in the second, but he lost steam in the third, when he surrendered a 454-foot leadoff home run to Shohei Ohtani on one of the handful of sinkers he threw.
"I beat him with that pitch multiple times,” Webb said. “You go to the well multiple times, you’re probably going to get beat by it, especially a guy like that.”
The Dodgers cut the deficit to 4-3 on a two-out RBI double from Teoscar Hernández that sailed over the head of left fielder Heliot Ramos, before going on to chase Webb before he could record an out in the fifth.
Webb issued a leadoff walk to Mookie Betts, gave up a single to Freeman and then issued another free pass to Max Muncy to once again load the bases with no outs, forcing Melvin to lift the 28-year-old in favor of José Buttó.
But Buttó couldn’t stop the bleeding, yielding a two-run double to Hernández that sparked a six-run outburst to put the Dodgers ahead for good.
While Saturday represented a missed opportunity for the Giants, they know they’ve put themselves in position to continue to put pressure on the teams in front of them if they can get back to their winning ways soon.
"Everybody knew what was going on today,” Melvin said. “Everybody knows, but we’re trying to stay pretty simple. Just keep riding this momentum we have. Let’s go out and play our best game today and move on to the next day.”