LOS ANGELES — A night worth forgetting.
Landen Roupp recorded five outs and allowed six runs, turning in the shortest start of his career. Shohei Ohtani hit the 249th and 250th home runs of his career. Clayton Kershaw turned back the clock and pitched seven shutout innings.
The result was the Giants’ worst loss of the season, an 11-5 blowout at the hands of the Los Angeles Dodgers on Saturday night that knocked them back down to second place in the NL West.
Before a ridiculous ninth inning, San Francisco was looking at its worst margin of defeat this season.
With Los Angeles leading 11-0, Dodgers manager Dave Roberts sent out position player Enrique Hernández to pitch the top of the ninth.
Hernández, making his ninth career pitching appearance, recorded his first career strikeout by freezing Christian Koss with an 86.9 mph fastball after two “eephus” pitches, electrifying both his dugout and Dodger Stadium. But after the strikeout, Hernández allowed a grand slam to Casey Schmitt, his second home run in as many days, and couldn’t record the game’s final out, necessitating Roberts insert Anthony Banda — a real pitcher.
Banda did what Hernández could not: finish the game. He got Jung Hoo Lee to ground out, and the ballgame was over.
This loss marks only the third time this year that San Francisco has lost a game by at least five runs, the other two defeats being on April 22 against the Milwaukee Brewers (11-3) and May 5 against the Chicago Cubs (9-2). In those two losses, though, the Giants were competitive for most of the game before things snowballed.
Saturday, though, was a wire-to-wire defeat.
Spencer Bivens did a fine job of eating innings to save the bullpen by allowing one run over a season-high 3 1/3 innings. Tristan Beck handled the sixth and seventh, allowing a pair of homers to Ohtani and Teoscar Hernández.
With San Francisco trailing 10-0 heading into the bottom of the eighth, manager Bob Melvin sent out backup catcher Logan Porter to pitch the eighth inning. Porter, the second position player to pitch for the Giants this season, allowed a solo homer to Miguel Rojas.
Roupp began his evening by allowing a solo home run to Ohtani, a swing by the three-time MVP that put the Giants in an early 1-0 deficit. Ohtani’s solo shot was the extent of the Dodgers’ offense in the first inning, but the following frame saw Los Angeles post a true crooked number.
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The right-hander began his second inning with back-to-back walks. Andy Pages doubled the Dodgers’ lead to 2-0 with an RBI single, then former Giant Michael Conforto drove in a run of his own with an RBI double to make the lead 3-0.
Roupp recorded the first out of the second when Hyeseong Kim lined out, but Mookie Betts drove in two runs with a double after the Giants decided to intentionally walk Ohtani. Roupp walked Freddie Freeman, allowed a sacrifice fly to Will Smith and his night was over.
