Giants Move Back into First Place in West with 2-1 Win over Dodgers

Entering the night a half-game behind the Dodgers in the NL West, the San Francisco Giants were able to quiet the hot Dodgers bats to move back into first place, flip-flopping with Los Angeles.

The pitchers duel saw both starters go deep into the late innings, with Clayton Kershaw surrendering runs in the top half of the first and Giants starter Madison Bumgarner pitch a scoreless 8 innings.

The Giants didn’t fare much better against Kershaw, but they did the most with the six hits that they got. Pablo Sandoval picked up two RBI on the night, scoring Angel Pagan both times for San Francisco’s only two runs of the game. Despite allowing the two runs, Kershaw stayed pretty much his perfect self the rest of the way, going eight fill innings, striking out 10 and finishing the night with 109 pitches. But what the Cy Young hopeful didn’t get was run support. Los Angeles mustered up just 5 hits on the night, and left runners on base in the 2nd, 3rd, 5th and 6th innings.

Instead of overpowering the Dodgers with a bombardment of hits, the Giants actually managed to out-duel one of baseball’s best pitchers in Clayton Kershaw and all the credit there goes to Bumgarner finished an inning-shy of a complete game shutout. Bumgarner matched Kershaw blow-for-blow in strikeouts but it took him 123 pitches to finish his night. Sergio Romero came in for the ninth inning to try and seal the win for the Giants, and stop what could have turned into a two game skid.

Los Angeles made it close however. With two outs in the bottom of the ninth, Hanley Ramirez hit a solo home run to left field, cutting the Giants lead to just one. After the blast, Romero was replaced on the mound by Javier Lopez, who faced and retired Andre Ethier.

But instead, San Francisco gets back on top in the NL West and is looking to stay there for the time being. It’s been a tight month for the Giants int he West, with Los Angeles hanging close to them the whole way through. If tonight’s ballgame was any indication of how these teams will finish the year out, don’t expect a clear cut winner anytime soon.

As for Los Angeles, they caught a break with the Braves losing to Washington in 13 innings Monday and don’t lose any ground in the Wild Card. The currently sit four games behind Atlanta and are a game behind the Pirates for the second Wild Card spot. But the Dodgers don’t have their eyes on the Wild Card chase, they are honed in on the Giants and winning the NL West.

It’s wild, and we won’t know for sure how the West was won likely until the end of September.