SAN FRANCISCO — Having secured a first-round bye, the Dodgers will spend next week playing simulated games and taking live batting practice – or has that already started?
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A San Francisco Giants team with no position players or starting pitchers left from their Opening Day roster figures to put up little resistance in the final series of the regular season. They didn’t Friday night, managing just three hits and striking out 10 times against Tarik Skubal in his seven scoreless innings as the Dodgers beat the Giants, 2-0.
In his final tune-up before the postseason, Skubal made the Giants’ lineup look like the Triple-A hitters most of them would be if not for the Giants’ obligation to fill out a major-league roster.
He retired 20 of 23 batters faced, including 13 in a row at one point, and needed just 75 pitches to get through seven innings as the Dodgers recorded their 14th shutout of the season.
Victor Bericoto singled with two outs in the first inning and was thrown out by center fielder Andy Pages when he tried to stretch it into a double. Scott Bandura singled with one out in the third inning and moved to second on a sacrifice bunt. Bandura was the only Giant to touch second base safely against Skubal, who struck out seven of the next nine batters after the sacrifice bunt put him there.
Skubal’s 10 strikeouts included a near-immaculate inning. He struck out the side in the fourth inning on 10 pitches. In all, Giants batters took 43 swings against Skubal’s pitches and missed nearly half of the time (21).
Acquired at the trade deadline more for what he can do in October than anything he did over the final two months of the regular season, Skubal was nonetheless excellent in his 10 starts following the trade. He went 5-2 with a 2.61 ERA, 52 hits and 70 strikeouts in 62 innings as a Dodger.
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The Dodgers’ offense looked less playoff-ready. After gaining momentum for most of September, they have managed just five runs over their past three games, going 2 for 23 with runners in scoring position. They minimized that problem on Friday by getting just four at-bats with runners in scoring position.
Instead, their only runs came on two swings by Teoscar Hernandez and Pages in the second inning. Their home runs off Giants starter Yunior Marte stood up as the only scores of the game.
In his third game back from the injured list, Shohei Ohtani went 0 for 4 with three strikeouts.
Roki Sasaki made his second relief appearance since he returned from the IL and struck out two of the three batters he faced in a perfect eighth inning. Tanner Scott closed out the three-hit, 14-strikeout shutout.
UP NEXT
Dodgers (LHP Blake Snell, 4-1, 1.86 ERA) at Giants (LHP Matt Wilkinson, 1-3, 3.65 ERA), Saturday, 1:05 p.m., SportsNet LA, 570 AM
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More to come on this story.