The Dodgers fell 6-2 to the Giants on Tuesday, extending their losing streak to four games. The loss ensured that the Dodgers could not win the four-game series at Dodger Stadium this week, making a tie the best possible outcome for the home team.
The Dodgers struck first Tuesday, loading the bases in the first inning with one out. Then Will Smith drove a deep fly ball the other way, toward the right-field corner. It fell inches shy of a multi-run hit.
Giants right fielder Jung Hoo Lee made the over-the-shoulder catch just before running into the wall. Smith’s sacrifice fly brought in one run, the only one they’d squeeze out of the frame.
Two innings later, the Giants tied up the game. Dodgers starter Yoshinobu Yamamoto, who was charged with five runs in 6 ⅓ innings Tuesday, missed down the middle with a cutter to Eric Haase. And Haase sent it into the left-field stands.
Tie game — although, not for long.
Dodgers superstar Shohei Ohtani led off the bottom half of the third inning. And he snapped an 11-game (not counting the days he pitched but didn’t hit) homer-less streak to put the Dodgers up again.
The opposite-field shot was his first homer in 53 plate appearances. When he got back to the dugout, he jokingly motioned for the ball.
The back-and-forth continued. In the fifth inning, Yamamoto surrendered back-to-back homers to Harrison Bader and Haase, erasing the Dodgers’ lead.
Yamamoto hadn’t given up multiple home runs in a game all season. And the three he allowed Tuesday set a new high in his MLB career.
Yamamoto bounced back with a clean sixth inning, but in the seventh, he gave up consecutive base hits before recording the first out of the inning on a sharp line drive to second. Right-handed reliever Blake Treinen replaced Yamamoto with runners on the corners.
To add to the Giants’ lead, pinch hitter Drew Gilbert laid down a well-placed bunt up the first-base line. Dodgers first baseman Freddie Freeman charged hard and tried to make a bare-handed play, but he didn’t quite come up with it as the Giants’ Heliot Ramos raced across the plate.
Then Lee supplied even more insurance, dropping a two-run double into the right-field gap.
The Dodgers tried to mount a comeback in the eighth inning. Freeman drew a one-out walk, and Kyle Tucker moved him to third with a line drive double to right field. Then Smith walked to load the bases.
With the tying run at the plate, the Dodgers stranded all three runners. Max Muncy struck out, and Andy Pages lined out to left field to end the inning.
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