What we learned as Jung Hoo Lee’s heroics not enough in Giants’ loss to Dodgers originally appeared on NBC Sports Bay Area
LOS ANGELES — The Dodgers got a leadoff homer in the bottom of the first inning Thursday night, and they put a runner in scoring position in three of the next four innings. Over that same time period, the Giants had two hits: One at 71 mph and the next at 73 mph.
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And yet, the final matchup of this four-game series was tied up heading into the sixth inning. The Giants had a chance to steal one, but those two bloops ended up being their only hits. The offense fell flat Thursday and they fell 5-2, finishing with a series split after winning the first two games.
With Shohei Ohtani and Mookie Betts getting the night off, Will Smith led off — and he blasted a sinker out to right-center. The Dodgers took a 2-0 lead an inning later, but the Giants tied it up in the fifth when Teoscar Hernandez misplayed a Jung Hoo Lee bloop into an inside-the-park homer.
Hernandez made up for it an inning later, lining his third hit in as many at-bats to put two runners on and end Landen Roupp’s night. Matt Gage has been a magician in the middle innings this year, but after a strikeout of Dalton Rushing, he gave up a two-run single to pinch-hitter Alex Call.
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That was more than enough against the Giants, who had plenty of big moments in the four-game series but left town eight games under .500.
Jung Hoo History
Lee blooped an 0-2 pitch into the left field corner with two outs in the fifth and Hernandez appeared to think it was going to bounce off the dirt and into the seats for a ground rule double. Instead, the ball hit the padding and rolled all the way to the left field wall, and Lee never broke stride. Third base coach Hector Borg was waving him all the way and Lee slid in safely ahead of a high throw from Miguel Rojas.
Amazingly, it was the first inside-the-park homer for the Giants at Dodger Stadium, which was built in 1962. It was Lee’s first inside-the-parker in the big leagues and the first by a Giant since Patrick Bailey’s memorable walk-off last July. There have been a few at Oracle Park, but Lee became just the ninth San Francisco Giant to hit one on the road. The last Giant to hit one against the Dodgers was Larry Herndon off Fernando Valenzuela at Candlestick Park in 1981.
Officially, Lee’s third homer of the season left the bat at 73.2 mph and traveled 225 feet. He made it around the bases in 15.2 seconds.
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Landen in L.A.
Until the single from Call, it was looking like Roupp would escape with one of the grindiest outings of the year. He had just one clean inning and it felt like there was a runner in scoring position for just about every pitch he threw, but he kept getting strikeouts when he needed them. Smith went down with two on in the second and Roupp got Kyle Tucker with a runner on third and two outs in the fifth.
The dangerous living finally caught up to him in the sixth. Roupp left with two runners on, and the single from Call brought them home. He was charged with four earned in 5 1/3, which raised his ERA to 3.49.
The New Kershaw?
Emmet Sheehan has a 3.99 ERA in three big league seasons and has battled inconsistency this year while pitching at the back of a star-studded rotation. But when he sees the Giants, he puts up the kinds of numbers that Clayton Kershaw did over more than a decade of pitching in rivalry games.
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Sheehan’s MLB debut came against the Giants in 2023, and he pitched six no-hit innings before getting lifted with a high pitch count. In four subsequent appearances against them, he has allowed five hits in 22 innings. Overall, Sheehan has given up just four earned runs in 28 career innings against the Giants, and half of that total came on Lee’s bloop homer.