Webb roughed up as SF Giants stumble into trade deadline with loss to Dodgers

SAN FRANCISCO — In the bottom of the first inning Monday night, the Giants accomplished something they failed to do once while being swept last week in Los Angeles: they finished an inning with the lead.

All too quickly, though, the Dodgers showed that nothing much had changed in a week. The Giants continued to stumble toward Tuesday’s trade deadline. Los Angeles’ rampage through the NL West merely found a new setting.

By the top of the second, the Dodgers had taken the lead and would only add to it the rest of the way. An 8-2 defeat was the Giants’ fifth straight loss to their division rivals and halted a brief two-game winning streak. On the eve of the trade deadline, the Giants (51-52) failed to climb back above .500 and fell 4.5 games out of playoff position.

Yet, with hours to go until Tuesday’s 3 p.m. PT deadline, Carlos Rodón and the Giants’ other potential trade candidates remained on the roster. A small swap of minor leaguers with the Rays (RHP Jeremy Walker for C/IF Ford Proctor) was their only action Monday.

The one player likely off limits in any trade discussions, Logan Webb, did not have a night to remember, though Monday’s start will go down in his personal record books.

The Dodgers tagged Webb for six runs and forced him from the game after five innings, despite throwing only 83 pitches. The six runs were the most allowed by Webb in eight career starts against the Dodgers and 32 starts at Oracle Park.

“I don’t know what we’re gonna do,” Webb said, downplaying whatever effect the looming deadline had on his performance. “I think everyone just comes in here and tries to work hard everyday and win. It’s unfortunate that we haven’t. … I don’t know if today was like, if we win, we get somebody, if we lose, then we trade somebody. I think the goal every time is to win. Unfortunately I was pretty (crappy) today, so I didn’t give my team a chance to do that.”

The Giants took an early 1-0 lead when David Villar drew a bases-loaded walk in the bottom of the first, but Webb coughed it up in the ensuing top half of the second on a two-run home run to Max Muncy. Muncy’s go-ahead homer — which barely cleared the glove of a leaping Austin Slater in center field for his seventh at Oracle Park, tied for the most of any opponent since 2018 — started a trend as the first of all five Los Angeles RBI hits to come against Webb’s offspeed.

Catcher Will Smith drove in two more runs on a pair of doubles off Webb’s slider, and first baseman Freddie Freeman knocked in another with a single off another one of Webb’s sliders. After Muncy’s two-run shot in the second, the Dodgers plated three more in the third and added a sixth run off Webb in his fifth and final inning.

“Just catching a lot of plate,” manager Gabe Kapler said. “I just don’t think he had his best command. When he’s commanding all three of his pitches, he’s really tough. But today he caught some plate, and those are some pretty good hitters.”

Wilmer Flores, a natural trade candidate as a productive veteran on an expiring contract, made it a 6-2 game in the fifth with a solo shot to left field. While Rodón and Joc Pederson has garnered more attention in the rumor mill, Flores has been the Giants’ most consistent hitter this season, increasing his homer total to 16 and his RBI total to 56, a team-high and three away from a personal best.

It’s been seven years since Flores was caught on camera shedding a tear on the field after his name surfaced in trade rumors with the Mets as a 23-year-old in his third big-league season.

“You can talk about it, but you’re just going to learn when it happens. Because you’re never ready the first time you get traded,” Flores said. “I didn’t know much about the business part of the game. I thought you were supposed to be with just one team. Now obviously I know more about the business and how it works. … I just didn’t know that I could get traded or that I was available. Obviously I was young and I learned from it.”

The Dodgers’ win Monday was the first to come in an opposing ballpark in 10 games between the rivals this season.

When the Dodgers last visited China Basin, in the second week of June, the Giants’ scuffles were only just beginning. But they made a statement that series by sweeping Los Angeles and closed the divisional deficit to 3.0 games.

After dropping four games at Dodger Stadium out of the All-Star break and Monday’s loss, that three-game set here last month looks like nothing but an aberration. Three games was as close as the gap would get, and after Monday it had grown to 18.5 games.

Source: www.mercurynews.com