Giants’ mistakes compound into another defeat on crucial trip originally appeared in NBC Sports Bay Area
LOS ANGELES — As the Blake Snell market continued to drag on this spring, the Los Angeles Dodgers quietly dipped their toes in the water. They’ve seen Snell dominate them so many times that it only made sense that they would try to sign him, but the Dodgers wanted more commitment than the Giants got from Snell, who may opt out after this season.
On Monday, Snell looked like exactly the pitcher the Dodgers tried to add to their billion-dollar offseason. And the Giants continued to look like the team that needed that jolt last offseason.
A 3-2 defeat at Dodger Stadium was the third in four games on this trip, which included just 11 total runs despite the lineup playing three games at Coors Field and then facing a pitcher making his MLB debut. Snell did his part, allowing two runs in six innings, but there were plenty of errors elsewhere.
It all started in the first inning when Jorge Soler drew a leadoff walk and then was thrown out at third while trying to take advantage of a single by LaMonte Wade Jr. The Giants didn’t score and the decision allowed River Ryan to settle.
Seven innings later, Luis Matos and Heliot Ramos nearly collided while chasing a fly ball to left field. He hit a leadoff double between them, and when Teoscar Hernandez hit a single up the middle a few minutes later, the Dodgers took the lead for good.
“Heliot called,” coach Bob Melvin said in a quiet clubhouse. “When he got close and it looked like they were going to meet, he backed away.”
Young players are going to make mistakes, but now the older Giants are doing the same, and this is a lineup that right now seems incapable of getting out of trouble. The only exception on this trip was Tyler Fitzgerald, who scored for the fourth game in a row. Melvin said Fitzgerald seems more confident and calm now that he plays a daily role and, perhaps in an odd way, is sending a message to the front office.
The Giants are treading parallel paths as the trade deadline approaches. They kept this season’s core intact while trying to insert young players who would shape the future, but sometimes it gets weird. Fitzgerald only took off because the Giants finally gave him the runway to do so.
Matos is perhaps the best example of the current embarrassment. The 22-year-old has made just four appearances this month, even with Austin Slater now elsewhere. But because he is in the squad, he is still expected to excel in big positions. He hit Michael Conforto with a go-ahead run in the third and one out in the sixth and struck out. Two innings later, it was the defense that failed.
Matos will be a big part of the future in San Francisco. Ramos will be there too. Increasingly, Fitzerald looks like part of the solution, and the same can be said for Erik Miller, who eliminated Shohei Ohtani for the fourth time in four fights this year.
A future core is starting to emerge, but the Giants are still hoping this year’s starters can get them back into the running. During the first few days of the first semester, there weren’t any tangible signs that this would happen, although they didn’t give up hope even as the days continued to pass by. until the negotiation deadline.
“Yes, we’re going through it right now, but we still have a lot of games to play,” Fitzgerald said. “I know nobody is happy with the way the second half started – the fans, us, but what are you going to do? We just have to come back and keep working hard and hopefully we can turn it around and we can all get hot at the same time.” .”
