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As the great Vin Scully used to say, “It’s time for Dodger baseball.”
San Francisco style.
The Giants’ biggest series of the season is coming up, and they’ve shuffled their rotation so that their best three starters will be on the Oracle Park mound with the Dodgers in town for games Friday, Saturday, and Sunday in advance of the All-Star break.
Four of the weekend’s six starting pitchers were selected as All-Stars, making for some epic matchups. Logan Webb will start Friday night’s opener followed by Landen Roupp on Saturday and Robbie Ray on Sunday, and the Dodgers will counter with Dustin May, Shohei Ohtani, and Yoshinobu Yamamoto.
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Ohtani, the tremendous two-way player, was named an All-Star designated hitter, not pitcher, and will be on a strict pitch count Saturday as he makes his fifth start following a long rehab from his second major elbow surgery.
Wednesday’s game aside — a 13-0 pulverization by the Phillies in which Justin Verlander gave up two earned runs in six innings — the Giants are catching L.A. at the right time. They won six of seven before the Wednesday clunker while the Dodgers have lost six straight, having been swept by the Astros and Brewers.
“I’m excited. I’m sure it’s going to be pretty rowdy,” said Verlander, who ran his winless streak as a Giant to 15 starts despite pitching quite a few winnable games. “I hope we can move on from this one today and give the Dodgers a good run.”
The Giants skipped Hayden Birdsong’s turn, a wise move considering his recent struggles, so that Ray could pitch Sunday’s finale. That would deem Ray ineligible to appear in Tuesday’s All-Star Game in Atlanta because of the rule disallowing pitchers who start the final Sunday of the first half.
Ray was an All-Star in 2017, too, but didn’t get a chance to pitch in the game. His reaction to missing the chance again this year: So what? He realizes the playoff race comes first. The All-Star Game is a mere exhibition, but the regular season is for real, and the Giants built some momentum of late, Wednesday’s game notwithstanding.
“We’re trying to do something bigger than the All-Star Game this year,” Ray said.
As recently as June 13, the Giants were in a first-place tie with the Dodgers, but then went in a tailspin and lost 12 of 16, suddenly finding themselves a whopping nine games back. The recent surge of wins, including Ray’s complete-game win in Arizona, brought calm and confidence back to the clubhouse.
Tuesday night’s wild triumph, featuring Patrick Bailey’s game-ending, inside-the-park home run on a ball that crazily ricocheted off the brick wall in right-center, punctuated the winning ways. Wednesday was a setback despite Verlander striking out seven, walking none, touching 96.9 miles per hour with his fastball, averaging 95.1 miles per hour, and overall pitching far better than he did in his last start against the A’s.
“I thought it was his best stuff of the year by a pretty good margin,” manager Bob Melvin said. “We just didn’t play well behind him. We didn’t score many runs. That’s kind of been the theme when he’s pitched.”
The offense was mostly nonexistent (four hits), and the defense was sloppy with two throwing errors by third baseman Matt Chapman and another by catcher Andrew Knizner. After Verlander exited with a 4-0 deficit, the Phillies ran up the score with 11 more runs, including a seven-spot in the eighth, six of which were charged to Tristan Beck. Philadelphia added two in the ninth when outfielder Mike Yastrzemski took the mound and the 13-run margin of defeat was the team’s biggest of the season.
“I try not to be results-oriented so much with wins or losses or a certain stat I’m looking to achieve,” said Verlander, who made a mechanical adjustment in his motion to pull the ball from his glove a bit earlier. “It’s more just focused on being deceiving to the hitter and feeling I can consistently get them out and fool them. That’s our job. Today was really the first time I felt like consistently I was able to do that.
“I’ve been searching a lot. It’s been difficult. I’ve been working my butt off, but I’m very optimistic this mechanical fix is the one that propels me into a good second half.”
Moving forward, the weekend series could be a doozy for the Giants, a major confidence-builder heading to the break if they find a way to win at least two of three. That’s why it was important to tweak the rotation and start Ray.
The lefty has faced the Dodgers once as a Giant, when he threw five hitless innings last July 24 in his first start following a long rehab from Tommy John surgery. Let it be known he struck out eight batters, including Ohtani twice and Freddie Freeman once.
Ray was being eased back and had a limited pitch count. Still, as it was, he had the longest no-hit bid by a starter in his Giants debut since Hall of Famer Juan Marichal broke in with 7 ⅔ hitless innings way back in 1960.
Birdsong will be available in the series out of the bullpen, and Melvin assured the 23-year-old will return to the rotation after the break despite his command issues. He walked 13 batters in 13 innings his past three starts, posting a 7.62 ERA. If anyone needs an extended rest, it’s Birdsong.
“I think the break will probably be good for him … I think he’ll come back refreshed,” Melvin said.
Ray, meanwhile, still plans to travel to Atlanta along with teammates Webb and Randy Rodríguez to hang out and enjoy the All-Star festivities. Back in the 2017 All-Star Game, he was eligible to pitch but did not because he was designated by NL manager Joe Maddon as an extra-inning reliever and never got the chance.
Ray will get another All-Star DNP this year and will be replaced on the NL roster. The Giants hope Tyler Rogers is considered, but the priority for now is winning the Dodger series and going into the break with the mindset to strike it big in the second half.