For nine-plus innings, the Dodgers and Giants couldn’t buy a hit with a runner in scoring position, but in the tenth, the Dodgers broke through for a 5-1 win. Alex Call and Andy Pages recorded two-out hits, a double, and a three-run shot to give the Dodgers their first lead in this game and the only one they’d need.
Before getting to that point of being tied in extras, Jack Dreyer did a reasonable job of keeping the Giants at bay as an opener, but a stolen
base allowed the opportunity for just a pair of singles to open the scoring in the second. Shay Whitcomb singled and stole second, later driven in by Scott Bandura—his first RBI of the season, playing in just his 13th big league game. Bandura also tried to steal a base, but this time Dreyer was alert to the danger and picked him off.
Facing a traditional bullpen game with Carson Seymour completing just one inning to open this one, the Dodgers first threatened to score in the third, the inning marked by Tony Vitello’s ejection. With two on and a 2-2 count to Mookie Betts, a check swing in which he probably went around was called a no-swing. Vitello came out to argue what had already been a topic of frustration earlier in the game and was thrown out for the seventh time in his 2026. The Giants, however, got out of the jam, as Betts struck out on the next pitch, and Sam Hentges also punched out Freddie Freeman.
What the Dodgers offense couldn’t do in the third, it did in the following frame. Kyle Tucker got on to leadoff the inning thanks to a defensive error by the second baseman and moved to third on a Max Muncy double—his 27th of the season, setting a new career high in a single season. With two on and one out, Andy Pages evened the score with a sacrifice fly.
Through the following innings, the Dodgers kept threatening but never coming through, first with a Freddie Freeman hit with a man on being taken away by a great defensive play from Jonah Cox—somewhat redeeming himself for the error that contributed to the Dodgers’ first run. That, by the way, would be Freeman’s last action in the game, replaced after five by Kiké Hernández as Dave Roberts rotated key pieces.
In the sixth, Muncy nearly wrote another chapter in his book as a giant killer. But the deepest part of the park was just deep enough to keep him from a solo shot in a ball that would’ve gone out in 23 of 30 stadiums. Perhaps the biggest squandered chance, though, came in the seventh and eighth when the Dodgers first stranded a leadoff double by Tommy Edman with three straight groundouts—an inning later, after Muncy secured his third hit of the day, Andy Pages hit into an inning-ending double play with two on and one out.
The Dodgers’ pitching was the reason the offense kept getting these opportunities to take the lead. Justin Wrobleski was the first pitcher out of the bullpen for the Dodgers, but looking for an even distribution of workload, he only completed two scoreless innings in under 30 pitches. Roki Sasaki and Edwin Díaz combined to strike out three, each with a scoreless frame.
Although Wrobleski had a couple of scares, the Giants truly came back to threaten again in the seventh when Bobby Miller took the mound, but also without actually breaking through. With runners at the corners and no outs, Miller secured a strikeout, then lucked into Marcelo Mayer staying at third on a wild pitch quickly recovered by Hunter Feduccia, recorded another punchout, and finished off the inning with a groundout.
With both teams exhausting new ways of threatening without actually scoring, the Giants looked like they’d take the lead with a leadoff bomb in the eighth by Christian Koss. However, the call on the field of a home run was overturned when replay made it clear it was a foul ball, and the score remained 1-1 through nine innings.
Even in the tenth, it looked like the Dodgers were going to strand the ghost runner after their first two hitters were retired without him advancing to third, but Call came through, and an intentional walk later, Pages had the big hit of the game. With the four RBI he recorded in this game, Pages left Ohtani behind and isolated himself as the Dodgers’ RBI leader this season, with 85.
Sunday particulars
Home run: Andy Pages (23)
WP —Alex Vesia (3-1): 1 IP, 1 hit, 1 strikeout
LP —Duncan Davitt (0-1):1 IP, 2 hits, 4 runs, 3 earned runs, 1 walk
Up next
The Dodgers get a little under a week off before they get back on the field on Saturday at home. They’ll be playing host to the winner of the Wild Card round between the Braves and Phillies in game 1 of the NLDS. No starters have been announced for that series.
