Dodgers win seventh straight

LOS ANGELES— The second of now three matchups of left-handers between the Dodgers and Giants was a full on pitching duel. And while this season has seen a lot of runs scored, today the Dodgers won a close 2-1 game over the Giants.

Rich Hill and Ty Blach kept the runs off the board with Hill getting the win while Blach suffered a very tough loss. Hill pitched 5⅔ innings and gave up two hits, a run and two walks. Hill had three strikeouts. Pedro Baez came in to face Hunter Pence and retired him.

Baez went on to pitch a scoreless seventh before handing the ball to Josh Fields. Fields got Gorkys Hernández to ground out to short and manager Dave Roberts walked out to the mound to bring in Luis Avilán to face the lefty swinging Conor Gillaspie.

Carlos Moncrief, making his major-league debut, pinch hit for Blach. Moncrief would work a walk in his first plate appearance. Denard Span would line out to Cody Bellinger to end the inning.

Kenley Jansen came in to pitch the ninth and it was much busier inning than he and all the fans would have liked.

Jansen gave up an infield single to Miguel Gomez but soon after that Hunter Pence hit into a 6-3 double play. Jansen would then walk Buster Posey. That brought up Brandon Crawford who singled. Jae-gyun Hwang was then up in a key spot and Jansen would strike him out to get the save.

Blach does what Blach does against the Dodgers, he had some rough parts, especially in the first inning when he got Yasiel Puig to hit into a 1-2-3 double play with the bases-loaded. Blach pitched seven innings, gave up two runs while scattering eight hits and two walks. Blach struck out three.

The Dodgers scored those runs in the first and third inning and both were scored the same way; a pair of Corey Seager doubles soon to be followed by a pair of Cody Bellinger RBI singles. Bellinger was aided with the infield being in on the second single.

The Giants would cut the lead to one when Pence hit a solo home run in the fourth but that was as close as they got on Saturday.

Up next

The Dodgers conclude the home stand and a great month of July with a 5:05 p.m. ESPN Sunday Night Baseball game with Hyun-jin Ryu going against Madison Bumgarner.

Saturday particulars

Home runs: Hunter Pence (7)

WP - Rich Hill (8-4): 5⅔ IP, 2 hits, 1 run, 2 walks, 3 strikeouts

LP - Ty Blach (6-7): 7 IP, 8 hits, 2 runs, 2 walks, 3 strikeouts

Save - Kenley Jansen (27): 1 IP, 2 hits, 1 walk, 1 strikeout, 1 double play