LOS ANGELES — On a night filled with contributions from rookies, the longest-tenured position player in this rivalry drove in the winning run.
Brandon Crawford’s single gave the Giants the lead in the top of the 11th and they held on for a 7-5 win over the Dodgers, who blew a four-run lead in the late innings before staging their own comeback in the ninth.
The seventh consecutive road win for the Giants came on a night when they looked lifeless against a rookie and then watched their best reliever have a rare off night. After Crawford’s go-ahead single, Austin Slater tacked on another run with a single to right.
Jakob Junis closed it out in the bottom of the inning for his first career save.
The wild finish came on a night when the Giants didn’t have a hit against Emmet Sheehan in his MLB debut. Sheehan threw six no-hit innings, nearly matching Ross Stripling’s memorable first night, but the Giants scored five runs in their first two cracks at a Dodgers bullpen that is threatening to derail their season.
The game was scoreless until the bottom of the fifth, when Will Smith dug out a good slider that was down and in, poking it into center field for an RBI single. The Dodgers scored four runs off Sean Manaea in the inning, but the lead didn’t last long once their struggling bullpen got involved.
Wilmer Flores fouled a ball off his toe in the seventh and looked to be in tremendous pain, but a few seconds later he hit a two-run shot to left that cut the deficit in half. The Giants erased the rest and then took the lead in the eighth on RBI from Joc Pederson, Thairo Estrada and Casey Schmitt.
Camilo Doval had converted 15 consecutive save chances dating back to April 30, but with one out in the ninth, he gave up consecutive singles to Miguel Rojas, Mookie Betts and Freddie Freeman. The Dodgers might have walked it off in the ninth if not for a tremendous throw from Patrick Bailey:
Showing Off The Depth
The six previous road wins were filled with late comebacks, and the Giants once again showed patience and depth while scoring five runs in the seventh and eighth.
The eighth-inning rally started with a walk by Luis Matos, who earlier hit two deep flyouts. Austin Slater’s pinch-hit single kept the line moving and Pederson won a rare left-on-left matchup with an RBI single to left. Estrada’s sacrifice fly tied the game and Schmitt beat out a grounder to short to give the Giants the lead.
In the two innings, eight different Giants reached base.
Mookie Magic
Sheehan carried the no-no through the sixth in large part because of Betts. The right fielder ran down LaMonte Wade Jr.’s liner to right-center for the second out of the sixth and then made a diving grab of Pederson’s rocket to right that ended up being Sheehan’s last out.
This space is usually reserved for Giants highlights, but the Betts play was too good. Pederson’s liner in the sixth was hit 115 mph, making it the second-hardest batted ball of the season by a Giant:
Pederson has the five hardest-hit balls of the season, and that was the only one not to be a hit. The other four resulted in two homers and two singles.
Friends From The Pacific Coast League
The Dodgers lost David Peralta (left hamstring strain) and Chris Taylor (right knee pain) to injuries during the game and replaced them with Outman and fellow rookie Michael Busch. That sequence somehow made the Giants, who started Matos and Bailey, seem old by comparison.
RELATED: Giants notes: Haniger out 10 weeks after forearm surgery
At that point, the Dodgers had five rookies in the game, including one on the mound who never even saw the PCL. Sheehan’s promotion from Double-A lasted just a couple of days before he was needed in the big leagues.
The Giants used four rookies, with Ryan Walker pitching 1 1/3 relief innings and Schmitt coming in for Flores in the seventh. They still have the youth edge on the season, having used eight rookies to six for the Dodgers. Times have certainly changed in this rivalry.
Download and follow the Giants Talk Podcast