Buehler shelled, Dodgers go quietly in series finale

SAN FRANCISCO — Okay, nobody panic. The Dodgers still have 25 games left in the season and can catch San Francisco any night of the week, but the missed a prime opportunity in Oracle Park this weekend. In spite of having one of the game’s premier big-game pitchers on the mound in Walker Buehler, the Dodgers laid a big fat egg in the final game of the 2021 season series with the Giants. The Giants were all over Walker Buehler, hitting him early and often, and sending him to the showers after only three innings on the wrong end of a 6-4 loss.

Brandon Belt starts the hit parade with a homer

Walker Buehler came into this game owning the San Francisco Giants, but the home team did not seem one bit intimidated. The tone was set just two hitters into the Giants’ batting order, when Brandon Belt the first pitch he saw from Walker Buehler to the deepest part of Oracle Park for a 420-foot solo home run to put the Giants on the board quickly.

Dodgers get one back, but the rally stalls

In the top of the second inning the Dodgers came up with a run with a nice series of at-bats. Justin Turner led off with a single up the middle off new Giants pitcher Jose Alvarez. He then advanced to second on a Corey Seager walk. Will Smith promptly followed up with a single of his own to score Turner and tie the game. After a pitching change and a wild pitch, the Dodgers had men on second and third with nobody out.

But they couldn’t get any more across. Chris Taylor popped out and then reliever Zack Littell struck out Cody Bellinger and Walker Buehler to end the threat. This would set the pattern for the rest of the day. Thanks to a bunch of walks from Giants pitchers, the Dodgers would get plenty of baserunners in the game, but failed to get the big hit time and time again. In all they left nine runners on base in the game, many in scoring position. That’s not how you win a ballgame in September. Or any other month of the year for that matter.

Buehler hit hard in the third

Then over the next two innings, Walker Buehler got hit as hard as I have ever seen him be hit in his career. He gave up three runs in the second and two more in the third, all on solidly struck balls. The big blows were a two-run triple from Steven Duggar in the second, and a run-scoring double from Brandon Crawford in the third, followed immediately by an RBI single from light-hitting catcher Curt Casali. It was clearly not Buehler’s day. After taking his at-bat in the top of the fourth, Buehler was lifted from the game, having only gone three innings. His final line was almost unrecognizable. 3.0 IP, 7 H, 6 ER, 1 K.

Dodgers futility at the plate continues all afternoon

As mentioned before, it was a day of no clutch hitting for the Dodgers line up. They had the bases loaded a couple of times early, but just couldn’t get that clutch two-out hit, something that they’d been so good at all season long. They did get one more run in the fifth when Will Smith took a bases-loaded walk from rookie pitcher Camilo Doval, but once again the threat ended with minimal damage when Chris Taylor struck out swinging. It was not a good day for Dodgers’ hitters at all (with only exception, more on that later).

Bullpen solid, but too little too late

It’s nice when your pen throws five scoreless innings, but in this one it hardly mattered. The damage had been done in the first three innings. But since there are basically no other good things to say about the Dodgers in this game, we might as well give a shout-out to Justin Bruihl, David Price, Shane Greene, and Andrew Vasquez, who combined to allow only three hits and no runs over the last five innings of a lost cause.

Don’t throw heat to the Machine

Things got verrrrry interesting in the top of the ninth when Dave Roberts emptied his bench to face lefty flamethrower Jake McGee. First, Austin Barnes hit a hot shot to third baseman Chris Bryant, but Bryant was unable to make an on-target throw to first and Barnes crossed first base before Brandon Belt could get back to the bag. Then, up came Albert Pujols, who would probably like to face McGee in every at bat for the rest of the season. He gave Pujols everything he wanted: a fastball from a lefthander, which is essentially the only pitch that Pujols can hit with authority these days. Big mistake. Pujols pulverized the ball to deeeep centerfield and suddenly it was a 6-4 ballgame.

A single, a terrible call, and a net-scraping foul

Now trailing by only two runs, the Dodgers still had three outs to play with and the top of the order coming up. Trea Turner popped out for out number one, but Max Muncy beat the shift with a ground ball single through the vacated left side of the infield, and lo and behold, the tying run was coming up to the plate in the person of Mookie Betts. Betts battle hard, but got completely screwed over on a called third strike that was clearly inside. I would like to see the ump scorecard on home plate umpire Tony Randazzo for this game, because he missed a lot of big calls, for both teams.

The Dodgers were now down to their last out. Justin Turner came up with Giants manager Gabe Kapler sticking with McGee for at least one more hitter. On a 1-2 pitch, Turner sent a foul ball down the right field line that at first glance seemed to hit off the protective netting before right fielder Mike Yastrzemski made the catch. However, upon review, it was determined that indeed it was a clean catch for the final out of the ballgame. The Dodgers came up just short, and would have to settle with leaving town having won only one of three against the Giants.

On to St. Louis

Well, I guess the one benefit of not pitching Max Scherzer this weekend is that he is now pitching on Monday against the Cardinals in St. Louis. Hopefully, Mad Max can play the role of the stopper and get the Dodgers back in the W column. In the end, it was a very good week for the Dodgers, though it could have been fantastic. Dodgers fans need to remember that not so long ago, the team was five full games behind the Giants. One down with 25 games to play is totally doable. The Dodgers just need to man up and start making clutch plays, something that was sorely lacking over the weekend in San Francisco.