Giants 9, Dodgers 5: Well, That Sucked

Today was a good day to have chosen to do something else with your time.

By some miracle, the Dodgers got on the board first against the Giants for a 1-0 lead. A Yasmani Grandal single on a nice piece of hitting plated Howie Kendrick in the bottom of the second, thus ending about a trillion consecutive scoreless innings against the Giants. Unfortunately, that lead lasted about five seconds, as Mike Bolsinger generously served up a meatball of a curve to Buster Posey in the very next frame. Oh, and did I mention the bases were loaded? Cause they were, and the Dodgers found themselves in a 4-1 hole.

The Dodgers fought right back in the bottom of the third behind back-to-back doubles from Joc Pederson and Justin Turner, followed by an Adrian Gonzalez single that brought them to within a run at 4-3. Things were then quiet for the next two innings, but then the floodgates opened … and not for the Dodgers. The Giants tacked on an insurance run in the sixth and then added four more in the seventh to make it a 9-3 laugher, at which point I hope you went to bed or went out or did something else productive with your life.

In a case of too little too late — or alternatively, maybe they shouldn’t have left a close game up to their worst relievers — Turner homered in the eighth to cut the lead to 9-4. Then in the ninth, an Alberto Callaspo single plated another run to make it a 9-5 final and secured that he’ll somehow remain on the roster for the rest of the season.

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Bolsinger was obviously never going to be a low-2 ERA pitcher, so this type of outing was unfortunately expected at some point. Mike surrendered five runs on three walks and eight hits in 5 1/3 innings, though he did strikeout six. The concern for me really isn’t so much the hits or that he’s finally giving up dingers on some of the curves he’s throwing, but that the command has been shaky for about a month now. Hopefully he levels out a bit in his next few starts to become the above-average pitcher his peripherals say he’s supposed to be.

As I alluded to earlier, Daniel Coulombe and Josh Ravin followed Bolsinger to dump gasoline on the dumpster fire, surrendering four runs in 1 2/3 innings before Juan Nicasio was wasted to pitch two scoreless innings while down 500 runs for one reason or another.