© Kirby Lee-USA TODAY Sports
SAN FRANCISCO — The San Francisco Giants went 2-2 in their opening series with the Dodgers, but left Southern California with concerning offensive struggles.
Now, their offense looks ready to handle the skidding Dodgers on Saturday afternoon.
The Giants were scheduled to begin their series with Los Angeles on Friday evening, but the opening game was postponed due to rain. Consequently, the Giants will play a split-admission doubleheader on Saturday, April 28, and made some adjustments to the rotation.
Although it’s Derek Holland’s turn to start, Chris Stratton will take the mound on Saturday afternoon. His only start of the season, thus far, came against the Dodgers on April 1. He held Los Angeles to three runs and five hits over 5.1 innings pitched, but ultimately received the loss.
Stratton cruised through the first three innings, allowing only one base runner via a hit-by-pitch in the third, but he ran into more trouble the deeper into the game he pitched. He allowed back-to-back singles in the fourth inning, the first of which eventually scored on a sacrifice fly.
Two innings later, Stratton sandwiched a strikeout between two doubles, the second of which knocked him from the game. Given how strong the relievers have been through the first six games of the season, it’ll be important for the Giants to time Stratton’s outing well and know when to hand it off to the bullpen.
Stratton’s efforts went unrewarded as the Dodgers, led by a scoreless outing from Rich Hill, beat the Giants 9-0.
Hill holds a lifetime 6-2 record with a 2.23 ERA over 72.2 innings pitched against the Giants. He kept the Giants to only five hits and three walks over six innings in his first start of the year.
Nonetheless, Hill is 0-1 with a 3.91 ERA in 23 innings pitched in his career at AT&T Park.
Additionally, the Dodgers are coming off being swept by the Arizona Diamondbacks and had a tough time scoring runs in the desert. They scored seven runs in their extra-inning loss on April 2, but were held to one run over their next two games by the Diamondbacks.
The Dodgers haven’t scored since Ausin Barnes came home on Chris Taylor’s sacrifice fly in the third inning of the second game of the series — 15 innings ago.
The Giants scored 14 runs in their two-game series with the Seattle Mariners.
Although they lost their home opener on April 3, the Giants scored four runs after being shutout the previous two games. The following day, they tagged the Mariners with 10 runs, including four home runs hit by Gorkys Hernandez, Brandon Crawford, Brandon Belt, and Pablo Sandoval.