Giants 6, Dodgers 2: That might end ‘Carlos Frias, starting pitcher’

Another day, another loss to the Giants. That surely won’t come back to bite the Dodgers in any way later this season. Anyway …

Carlos Frias gave up a couple runs in the first inning on sacrifice flies, because of course that’s how the Giants would score (OK, they came after a hit by pitch and double by Joe Panik). Things looked like they were going to be OK after Joc Pederson and Justin Turner hit back-to-back home runs in the bottom of the first inning. Unfortunately, that wasn’t the case.

For fun, here’s Joc’s blast (449 feet, 111 MPH exit velocity).

The Giants would hit the ball hard against him in the fifth and sixth innings. He allowed a 2-run home run to Dodger Killer Justin Maxwell in the fifth and a 2-run home run to Brandon Belt in the sixth (a pop fly that carried, Coors-style). It’s too bad because through four innings, Frias had thrown pretty well. This might be the end of the Frias experiment in the starting rotation. He has the best sitting velocity of any Dodger starter, and that could play up out of the bullpen. He’s throwing his off-speed stuff a little more, which is encouraging. If a move to the bullpen is in order, that could help to quell the concerns there. Of course, that leaves a hole in the rotation that needs to be filled, but hey, that’s baseball. Back to this dumb game.

The offense had its chances against Tim Hudson, who ended up pitching pretty well. Oh, and that Giants’ bullpen is pretty good, too. But when the quintet of Yasiel Puig, Adrian Gonzalez, Andre Ethier and Yasmani Grandal combine to go 1-for-16, scoring runs is going to be hard.

Yimi Garcia and newest addition to the active roster Matt West combined for 3 2/3 scoreless innings out of the bullpen.

There’s no Clayton Kershaw or Zack Greinke to stop this bleeding. The Dodgers instead turn to Brett Anderson (2-4, 3.43 ERA) to oppose Tim Lincecum (7-3, 3.31 ERA). First pitch is scheduled for 5:08 p.m. Pacific time because it’s an ESPN Sunday Night Baseball telecast. The Dodgers have a half-game lead on the Giants. It’d be nice to still be in first place after tomorrow night.