Sometimes a split is healthy. Bad relationships, a thriving stock purchase, ordering a banana-based dessert at an ice cream parlor, your sides at a comedy club. Some splits are bad: Bowling, personalities, the ends of hair, infinitives.
The San Francisco Giants going 2-2 on the road against the Los Angeles Dodgers falls right in the middle, after their 5-2 loss Thursday. Winning two games was great! Scoring only two runs in the final two games was bad, especially when those two runs came on a home
run that traveled 225 feet in the air. Jung Hoo Lee’s inside-the-park home run tied the game in the 5th inning, but it was also the Giants’ second and final hit of the game. That’s not great.
Emmet Sheehan pitched six innings for the win, giving up two hits, two runs, and two walks while striking out six, but that line understates how well Sheehan pitched and how badly he dominates the Giants. For Sheehan’s career, the Giants have hit 5-for-88. Lee’s inside-the-parker was the only extra-base hit off Sheehan in 28 innings of work over five appearances.
Lee deserves credit for his hustle and Teoscar Hernandez deserves demerits for his defensive effort, but the hit really should have been a double at best. But Lee flew around the bases, Hernandez toddled after the ball, and the relay throw was bad and something good finally happened against Sheehan, who turns into an ace against the Giants.
Sheehan didn’t give up a single hit in two starts against the Giants his rookie season. He missed all of 2024 with an injury, then threw 4.1 more hitless innings in a relief appearance against the Giants last July. Sheehan started his career with 15 hitless innings versus the Giants, then gave up only one hit in seven innings in his next start against the orange and black. The dominance is baffling.
That’s why the leadoff home run from Will Smith, substituting for Shohei Ohtani and both designated hitter and leadoff man, stung. Sheehan had a 0.82 ERA versus SF and that home run gave him a .18 run cushion. That’s how statistics work, right?
The Dodgers added another run after losing pitcher Landen Roupp (5-4) walked Max Muncy, that funky Muncy, then gave up a double to Hernandez. Hyeseong Kin drove him in with a single. Roup was lucky that, with runners on the corners and one out, Miguel Rojas attempted a safety squeeze but bunted right to the pitcher.
There was a bit of drama in the 4th inning when Tony Vitello challenged a force play at second, when it appeared Kim’s foot was off second base. The umpires disagreed, Willy Adames fouled out and the threat ended.
Drew Gilbert won a ball/strike challenge in the 5th that turned a strikeout into a walk, a high-leverage use of the challenge system. Dodger-killer Eric Haase forced him, but made good time tearing around third on Lee’s big hit.
Roupp got another bit of bad luck in the bottom of the 6th. After another walk and a single by Hernandez, who took second when Muncy headed to third, Matt Gage replaced Roupp. Gage struck out Dalton Rushing, whose name sounds like a state senator’s son who gets a DUI covered up by crooked politicians. Then pinch-hitter Alex Call blooped a two-run single to right, and advanced to second on Lee’s throw to the plate.
That would become crucial when Rojas hit an even softer single to center on the 10th pitch of his at-bat. Gage didn’t really pitch that badly, but bad things happen when you let runners take free bases.
It ultimately didn’t really matter, since the Dodgers trio of Edgardo Henriquez, Alex Vesia, and Tanner Scott (fourth save, first and last names should be reversed) yielded only a walk to Haase in three innings and struck out four.
Now the Giants head to beautiful Sacramento where they’ll face off against the A’s in their own triple-A team’s park, perhaps the opposite of Dodger Stadium since Sacramento fans rarely carry knives. The Battle of Bay is now the Battle of Highway 80. After Thursday, the battle of Highway 101 is a draw.
