SAN FRANCISCO -- The Giants lined up their three best starting pitchers for their pivotal showdown with the Dodgers this weekend, a sign of the rising stakes of each game as San Francisco attempts to stay in the hunt for a National League Wild Card spot.
Justin Verlander rose to the occasion with a vintage performance on Friday night, but Logan Webb and Robbie Ray ultimately couldn’t keep the momentum going.
One day after a rare misstep from Webb, Ray also faltered, surrendering five runs over four-plus innings as the Giants were routed, 10-2, to seal a series loss to the Dodgers on Sunday afternoon at Oracle Park.
After dropping two of three to their archrivals, the Giants (75-74) slipped 1 1/2 games behind the Mets (77-73) for third NL Wild Card spot with 13 games left to play. New York, which snapped an eight-game losing streak with a walk-off win over the Rangers on Sunday, also holds the tiebreaker over San Francisco.
“It’s frustrating, obviously,” Ray said. “But we’re still in it. We’re a resilient team. We showed that we’ve been able to bounce back from stuff like this. We’ve got to put this behind us, go on the road and win one game at a time.”
Ray seemed to take the mound with an extra bit of adrenaline, as he struck out Shohei Ohtani swinging on a 95.8 mph fastball to kick off a 1-2-3 first inning. But the Dodgers’ offense made the 33-year-old left-hander grind the rest of the way, drawing four walks to run up his pitch count and knock him out of the game before he could record an out in the fifth.
Mookie Betts led off that inning with a free pass and Teoscar Hernández singled to put a pair of runners on for Freddie Freeman, who drove an RBI double to right field to chase Ray and extend the Dodgers’ lead to 3-1.
“I felt, out of the stretch, like my front side was getting a little too quick,” Ray said. “I was missing a lot armside. I just wasn’t able to really get on top of it like I was out of the windup. I was just kind of fighting it all day, really. It kind of made the command of the slider a little off, as well. The pitch to Teoscar and the pitch to Freeman kind of burned me there at the end.”
Ray departed after throwing 98 pitches (58 strikes) and gave way to Joel Peguero, but the hard-throwing reliever struggled to limit the damage. Peguero issued a walk to Tommy Edman to load the bases and then gave up a slow roller to pinch-hitter Michael Conforto that got past a diving Casey Schmitt and rolled into right field for a two-run single. The Dodgers then made it 6-1 after Peguero was called for a balk after stepping off for a third time to try to deal with an apparent PitchCom issue.
The Dodgers ended up scoring 23 runs on 35 hits over the final two games of the series, an unexpected outcome considering the Giants deployed two All-Star starters in Webb and Ray.
“To be where we are today is disappointing,” manager Bob Melvin said. “It got away from us in a hurry. We gave up a lot of hits and a lot of runs to a team that makes you work. If you don’t throw it over the plate, they end up wearing you out some.”
Webb and Ray’s short starts means the Giants will embark on their final road trip of the regular season -- a seven-game NL West swing through Arizona and Los Angeles -- with a bullpen that’s already been forced to cover a combined 10 innings over the last two days.
That’s not the most comfortable position to be in considering the Giants are planning to start rookie Kai-Wei Teng, who has a 7.54 ERA over six appearances this year, in Monday night’s series opener at Chase Field.
Melvin said the club still has a few options that should be ready to step in and provide length if needed, including Spencer Bivens, Tristan Beck and JT Brubaker, but the Giants are also likely to depend heavily on their bullpen on Tuesday, as they’ve yet to announce a starter for that game.
“They’re a good team,” Melvin said of the D-backs, who are currently two games out of the third NL Wild Card spot. “We’re going to have to play well again to beat them over there. There are several teams that are in this thing. We try and focus on ourselves, not look too far forward.”