Giants 2, Dodgers 1: Another Depressing Loss

The Giants beat the Dodgers, 2-1, to take the series win and increase their lead in the NL West to five games. Julio Urias was as good as he’s ever been for the Dodgers, but one mistake costed him the game. And while the offense wasn’t excellent today, they sure aren’t getting any breaks from the baseball gods to help out along the way.

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Urias had his best start as a member of the Dodgers yet, going 86 pitches and 5 1/3 innings. Urias allowed only four hits and walked just one while striking out seven batters. Unfortunately, he did allow two runs and they came on his last two batters of the game. With one out, he gave up a single to Joe Panik and then he got burned on a 1-1 slider that was down but over the middle of the plate and Brandon Belt hit it out to right field for a 2-0 lead. Casey Fien then came on in relief and got out of the inning without further damage.

The Dodgers offense took until the top of the seventh to get on the board, but at least they did it in an explosive way with Joc Pederson absolutely bombing one into the Bay, cutting the lead in half, 2-1.

In the bottom of the seventh, though, Fien got into trouble when he allowed a lead-off single, and he retired the next two batters without allowing the runner to advance before issuing an intentional walk. Adam Liberatore then came on to get a lefty and he got him to end the threat and keep the game at one run. In the eighth, Liberatore walked the lead-off man, but got another lefty before being removed for Louis Coleman. Coleman proceeded to do his job again, preventing the Giants from doing any further damage.

Unfortunately, the Dodgers offense went quietly for the eighth inning in the game.

On the surface, the Dodgers offense didn’t do a whole lot against a struggling pitcher in Jake Peavy, amassing just six hits and a walk. However, for once I’ll make excuses for them, as they actually got very unlucky today. Hitters, especially Justin Turner, were spraying line drives and hard grounders everywhere but they found a glove what seemed like every single time which contributed greatly to the issues.

Still, at some point, it’s put up or shut up.

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The Dodgers are now 33-31 on the year and 16-17 away from home.

The Dodgers travel to Arizona tomorrow to play the Diamondbacks at 3:40 PM HST/6:40 PM PST/9:40 PM EST. The pitching matchup … does not favor the Dodgers, with Mike Bolsinger going against Zack Greinke.