Giants tip cap to new nemesis Bauer

One day after staging the biggest offensive eruption in the Majors this season, San Francisco’s bats were stymied by a new villain who added fresh drama to the Giants-Dodgers rivalry.

Following their 19-run outburst in Cincinnati, the Giants returned home and mustered only one unearned run over 6 1/3 innings against reigning National League Cy Young Award winner Trevor Bauer, who carried the Dodgers to a 2-1 win in Friday night’s series opener at Oracle Park.

Bauer’s antics made for great theater, as he sheathed an imaginary sword after striking out Alex Dickerson to end the fourth and then continued to antagonize fans by cupping his hand to one ear as he walked off the mound to a smattering of boos at the end of his outing.

“They’re going to hate me anyway, so might as well lean into it,” Bauer said.

“Do you expect anything else from Trevor?” said left-hander Alex Wood, Bauer’s former Reds teammate. “Of course he's leaning into it. I'm sure that Giants fans will love to hate Trevor, and he'll love that they hate him.”

Bauer is poised to become a central antagonist in an ancient rivalry that should intensify given the outlook for the ultra-competitive National League West this summer. Friday’s defeat snapped a five-game winning streak for the Giants (28-17), who dropped into a tie with the Padres for first place. The Dodgers, meanwhile, are only one game back, setting up a tight division race that promises to be a dogfight until the very end.

The Giants have exceeded expectations with their hot start to the 2021 campaign, but they fell short in their first meeting of the year against the Dodgers, whom they’ll face in six of their next eight games.

“That was a challenging game because neither side was really letting up or giving in at any point,” manager Gabe Kapler said. “They just played a better baseball game than us today.”

The Giants forced Bauer to throw 126 pitches, but they produced only two hits against him: a single by Dickerson that dribbled down the third-base line in the second and a bloop double by Brandon Belt in the fourth. Bauer carried a shutout into the sixth before the Giants finally got on the board with the help of a defensive miscue from the 30-year-old right-hander.

After Mike Yastrzemski and Brandon Crawford walked to put runners on first and second, Evan Longoria tapped a comebacker that deflected off Bauer’s glove. Bauer fielded the ball, but his throw to first base sailed over the head of Albert Pujols, allowing Yastrzemski to score and cut the Dodgers’ lead to 2-1.

“Sometimes you have to tip your cap to the other guy,” Kapler said. “He had a fastball that really carried through the zone, and he attacked. He attacked the strike zone, and he was looking to go deep into that game. That was clear from the get-go. I think that was probably their play. What I thought was most impressive as the game wore on is his fastball kind of picked up in velocity. He lost a little command there at the end, but he still had the life and carry on the fastball. I thought it was a really impressive performance. We just weren't able to get the big hit.”

Wood, a former Dodger, faced his old club for the first time since leaving to sign a one-year, $3 million deal with the Giants over the offseason, but he couldn’t keep his unbeaten streak alive. Wood struck out seven and yielded two runs over six innings, but he was charged with the tough-luck loss and fell to 5-1 with a 1.93 ERA over his first seven outings of the year.

The only blemish for Wood came in the third, when he surrendered a leadoff double to Mookie Betts, followed by a two-run blast to Chris Taylor. Wood fell behind, 2-0, before misplacing a slider that Taylor hammered 409 feet out to straightaway center field.

“We’ve obviously seen Woody pitch over the last couple of years so we kind of have an idea of how he’s going to attack hitters,” Taylor said. “He’s going to mix his stuff. He’s going to try to make good pitches on the corners, so I think we were just trying to be disciplined and really kind of wait him out and take advantage of when he did make a mistake. That’s what I was able to do on that 2-0 swing, I got a good pitch in the middle of the plate.”

Despite Friday’s results, the Giants remain intent on proving that they have what it takes to contend with the Dodgers and the Padres in the NL West. They’ll have several opportunities to do so in the ensuing months.

"It's been a while since we've been on a really good, winning ballclub being in first place," Belt said. "It's a lot of fun, man. That's why you play baseball, especially in rivalry games like this."