LOS ANGELES — The big, scary Dodgers don’t seem so menacing now, do they?
With a 7-3 win Sunday afternoon, the Giants completed a three-game sweep here at Dodger Stadium for the first time in more than a decade and only the sixth time since the teams moved west in 1958. Outscoring their archrivals 29-8 over the course of the weekend, their most runs ever in a three-game series here, it couldn’t have come in much more convincing fashion.
In three games, the Giants seemed to vanquish any leftover demons from a season ago, when they went 1-8 here and lost 14 times to the Dodgers.
Logan Webb, who earned the win Sunday with seven innings of two-run ball, took a wider-angle view. The win was their seventh in a row and clinched a perfect 6-0 record on the road trip, which started with another three-game sweep in St. Louis, something the Giants accomplished for only the fifth time in franchise history.
“What are we, 70 games into the season?” Webb said. “It is cool, but there’s a long way to go. I think we’re more excited about the road trip in itself than the three games here.”
Scott Alexander, who re-aggravated his strained hamstring in the ninth, understood the magnitude of the sweep. He has experienced both sides of the rivalry, pitching in Los Angeles from 2018-21. (That did not buy him any goodwill with the fans, who began booing during his injury delay, as well as Casey Schmitt’s, after he was hit by a pitch in the right elbow.)
“I think everyone here enjoyed it,” he said. “I know they’ve got a lot of injured guys, but that’s the game. We started off the season with a bunch of injuries early on, too. Good teams capitalize on situations like that, and I think we have a really good team.”
As for the ill-timed outbursts from the sell-out crowd of 52,307, Webb said, “I’m not too happy about that.” While Alexander added, “These people are used to waiting five hours in line to get sandwiches, but they can’t wait five minutes for someone to get off the field? After playing here for a couple years, I know that boos are part of being here, one way or another.”
It took the work of Camilo Doval in the ninth inning to secure the win after Alexander loaded the bases. Doval hit Will Smith with the first pitch he threw, forcing in one run and bringing the tying run to the plate, but made quick work of the next two batters, striking out David Peralta and J.D. Martinez to secure the sweep.
It had been more than a decade since the Giants’ last swept a series of at least three games at Dodger Stadium. The winning pitchers that series, Aug. 20-22, 2012, were Madison Bumgarner, Tim Lincecum and Matt Cain. A rookie Brandon Crawford started only one of the games, entering as a defensive replacement in the other two.
The long-due sweep of their bitter rivals made for a sweet ending to one of the best road trips in franchise history. They have won seven in a row overall, nine straight away from Oracle Park and 11 of their 15 games since the calendar turned to June. A team that finished Mother’s Day with a 17-23 record improved to 39-32 on Father’s Day; the Giants’ 22-9 record in that span is the best in the majors, enough to climb a season-high seven game over .500 and overtake the Dodgers for second place in the NL West.
“I just think you’re starting to see a cohesive unit, one where one batter passes the torch to the next batter and believes in the guy behind him,” manager Gabe Kapler said. “From a pitching perspective, we’re really beginning to trust our bullpen arms in the biggest moments. Not just one or two but the entire bullpen, which I can’t say was true all the way through this season but is definitely true now. … I think all those things in aggregate make us feel pretty confident going forward.”
The last time their record was this far above water was June 23 of last season, about a month before they visited Dodger Stadium and were swept over four games out of the All-Star break, the start of a seven-game losing streak that sank their season.
Look at how far they have come.
It wasn’t the Giants’ bullpen that imploded Friday night, but the Dodgers. Down to three healthy starters, San Francisco used eight pitchers to navigate Friday night’s 11-inning win, then needed only five to cover the remaining 18 innings, getting excellent work from Alex Wood and Tristan Beck on Saturday before Webb gave them seven solid innings Sunday.
It wasn’t the Giants who made costly defensive miscues over the course of the series, but the Dodgers. On Sunday, Crawford was able to advance to second on a single to left field that snuck under the glove of Peralta, then scored from third when Freddie Freeman muffed a potential inning-ending double-play ball.
The Giants, who seemed so bereft of homegrown talent in contrast to the Dodgers just a season ago, got contributions Schmitt, Luis Matos, Patrick Bailey and, of course, Webb, who were all drafted or signed as international amateurs and developed by San Francisco’s farm system.
After making his major-league debut Wednesday in St. Louis, Matos was unfazed by the bright lights and big stage of Dodger Stadium. The 21-year-old worked five walks in the first two games, scored six runs over the course of the series and made a sensational catch in center field Saturday. On Sunday, he contributed a two-RBI double as part of a four-run sixth inning that knocked Dodgers starter Tony Gonsolin from the game and blew the score wide open.
“We do have a different team,” Webb said. “Year to year it always changes. Last year I think we won once here. I think just coming out and trying to play good baseball and win games, that’s just the most important thing — not getting too caught up about one series in the middle of June, you know what I mean?”
Facing mounting injuries — Alex Cobb hit the injured list Sunday, following John Brebbia and Wilmer Flores on Saturday — the Giants find themselves at a crucial crossroads: Can they sustain this pace and hold on to a wild card spot (they currently own a 1.5-game lead on the second spot), or even overtake the D-backs for the division?
At this point last season, the Giants owned the exact same record: 39-32. All to say, there’s a lot of baseball left to be played. If the Giants proved nothing else this weekend, it should at least be entertaining.
Also …
— X-rays on Schmitt’s elbow came back negative, Kapler said. While he remained in the game to run the bases, after a lengthy meeting with Kapler and the training staff, Schmitt was replaced on defense in the bottom half of the inning. However, with flashbacks to the pitch that fractured Mitch Haniger’s forearm, the Giants seem to have avoided the worst-case scenario there.
— Cobb was also optimistic that he would be ready to return when eligible, a much quicker timetable than is typically associated with oblique strains. He threw a bullpen Saturday and was expecting to pitch this weekend.
Up next
The Giants return home Monday to continue a stretch of 10 straight games against NL West opponents. They’ll host the fourth-place Padres for four games, followed by three against the first-place D-backs, before heading to Toronto and New York for their penultimate trip to the Eastern time zone. With Alex Cobb hitting the injured list, San Francisco is still finalizing its pitching plans.
Monday, 6:45 p.m. – TBA vs. RHP Michael Wacha (7-2, 2.89)
Tuesday 6:45 p.m. – RHP Anthony DeSclafani (4-6, 4.31) vs. TBA
Wednesday, 6:45 p.m. – TBA vs. RHP Yu Darvish (5-5, 4.74)
Thursday, 12:45 p.m. – TBA vs. LHP Blake Snell (3-6, 3.48)
