After the Los Angeles Dodgers lost their series against the Atlanta Braves to open the homestand, they welcomed in the San Francisco Giants for a four-game set.
The Giants came to town as one of the worst teams in baseball with a 16-24 record while going 3-7 in their last 10. It presented a great opportunity for the Dodgers to get back on track, but they were unable to do so on Monday night despite welcoming Mookie Betts back from the injured list.
Giants 9, Dodgers 3: key takeaways
Roki Sasaki has encouraging start
Roki Sasaki’s final line score wasn’t anything special, but there were a lot of encouraging signs from the outing. He went five-plus innings, allowing three runs on six hits with five strikeouts to one walk.
The Giants got to Sasaki early with a solo home run from Rafael Devers, and he allowed three straight hits for two runs after going back out in the sixth inning when his velocity was starting to drop.
But outside of that, Sasaki was in the strike zone more consistently with all his pitches, and he utilized the forkball and hard splitter, as opposed to using only one of them. Sasaki recorded a strike on 66% of his pitches and had an elite 30% called strike-plus-whiff rate.
With that, Sasaki limited walks, and after allowing a single in the second inning, he retired the next three hitters via a strikeout. Sasaki also worked out of a bases-loaded jam in the third inning with just one out.
Sasaki went on to retire the next eight batters he faced before the aforementioned struggles in the sixth inning. Obviously, there’s still work to do, but this was arguably Sasaki’s best start with the Dodgers.
Dodgers offense shows signs, but not enough
The Dodgers offense didn’t do enough to ease concern about their recent performance, but there were some signs of life. They tallied 10 hits and two walks while striking out seven times.
That gave them 10 opportunities with runners in scoring position. They only had two hits in those chances, but considering their lack of opportunities lately, it was a step in the right direction to have that many at-bats with a runner on second or third.
The Dodgers scored their first run to tie the game with four straight singles from Freddie Freeman, Kyle Tucker, Will Smith and Max Muncy. They took the lead when Andy Pages grounded into a double play while the bases were still loaded with no outs.
Their third run came in the sixth inning when Muncy slugged a solo home run that tied the game. But after that, they weren’t able to scratch anything else across.
Alex Vesia struggles
Alex Vesia was called upon to pitch in a tie game during the seventh inning, but allowed three runs while only recording one out. Vesia allowed three straight singled before a bases loaded walk to put the Giants back up 4-3.
Then Will Klein entered and struck out the first hitter he faced, but then allowed a softly-hit single to bring home two more runs, both of which were charged to Vesia.
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