The Vin Scully Ring of Honor pregame ceremony at Dodger Stadium delayed first pitch several minutes, and offense lagged far behind. It wasn’t for lack of effort from the San Francisco Giants, however. Julio Urias simply managed to navigate five scoreless innings, and the Dodgers and Giants went into extra innings a third time in their past five meetings.
Andrew Toles led off the bottom of the first inning with a base hit on the first pitch he saw from Jeff Samardzija. Toles was caught in no man’s land soon after and picked off, and Samardzija proceeded to retire the next 14 batters faced.
Urias erased an Eduardo Nuñez one-out base hit in the second inning by inducing Joe Panik into a double play. Kelby Tomlinson reached on a bunt single and Brandon Belt walked, but Hunter Pence struck out and the Giants were again turned away.
A Buster Posey base hit to open the fourth inning was followed by a forceout at second base and double play. Urias stressed most in the fifth, beginning with a Panik double to right-center field.
It nearly resulted in an out at second base, as Yasiel Puig barehanded the carom off the wall and threw a strike to Corey Seager, whose tag was a hair late. Urias retired the next two batters faced, then walked Gorkys Hernandez and Belt to load the bases.
The three runners were stranded when Pence flied out to right field. Facing Pedro Baez, the Giants threatened again in the sixth. Nuñez doubled with two outs and Panik was intentionally walked after Baez fell behind in the count.
Tomlinson failed to break the deadlock, grounding out to end the inning. In addition to retiring 14 in a row, Samardzija had five strikeouts through five scoreless innings. His string of batters retired was snapped on a Puig pop-up down the first-base line.
Panik called off Belt, only to have the ball hit the heel of his glove and drop in fair territory. The error left Puig standing on third base. Two batters later, Chris Taylor shot a pinch-hit, go-ahead single to right field.
Ross Stripling struck out the side in the seventh inning but ran into trouble in the eighth. After leading off with a base hit to right field, Pence advanced to third base on a wild pitch. With the Dodgers infield curiously playing at normal depth, Posey’s RBI groundout tied the game.
Samardzija remained in the game in the eighth, throwing another 1-2-3 inning that was punctuated by catching Chase Utley looking for a third time in the game. Kenley Jansen struck out the side in the ninth to give the Dodgers an opportunity at a walk-off win.
Toles singled with one out but Seager grounded into an inning-ending double play. Josh Fields faced a bases-loaded jam with one out in the 10th inning which he was able to escape by striking out Christian Arroyo and retiring Nuñez.
The Giants to that point were 1-for-10 with runners in scoring position, and had stranded 11. Justin Turner was hit by a pitch for an MLB-tying seventh time this season. But the Dodgers failed to capitalize on having the leadoff man reach in the bottom of the 10th.
Hernandez’s RBI double off Grant Dayton in the 11th inning broke the tie, and Belt’s sinking line drive to right field scored another run and so did Pence’s sacrifice fly.
Mark Melancon worked around a two-out Franklin Gutierrez pinch-hit single and Toles infield single to earn a save in the Giants 4-1 victory, resulting in a series win over the Dodgers.
