Manaea's best start of '23 keeps SF's playoff hopes alive

LOS ANGELES -- The Dodgers have had Sean Manaea’s number for most of his career, but the veteran left-hander finally managed to flip the script on Friday night.

Manaea scattered three singles over a season-high seven scoreless innings in his best start of the year, helping the Giants snap their three-game losing streak and climb back to .500 with a 5-1 win at Dodger Stadium.

• Games remaining (8): at LAD (2), vs. SD (3), vs. LAD (3)
• Standings update: The Giants (77-77) are three games behind the Cubs (80-74) for the third and final National League Wild Card spot. They also trail the Marlins (79-75) and Reds (79-76) in the race.

Mike Yastrzemski, Thairo Estrada and Tyler Fitzgerald homered to back Manaea and give the Giants only their sixth victory in their last 32 road games. Manaea has earned the only two wins of the club’s current 2-6 road trip through Denver, Arizona and Los Angeles, lowering his ERA to 4.51 over 36 outings this season.

Manaea entered Friday 0-5 with a 9.00 ERA in nine career appearances against the Dodgers, but he didn’t allow a single runner to reach scoring position, striking out two and walking none in the efficient 85-pitch effort. He leaned heavily on his fastball -- which topped out at 96.6 mph -- throwing it 61% of the time.

“I have nightmares about coming to this place and facing these guys,” Manaea said. “They’re very, very good. They’ve been like that for a long time. I haven’t had much success, if any, here, so to do that -- dreams do come true. It feels really good.”

Signed to a two-year, $25 million deal over the offseason, Manaea opened the year in the Giants’ rotation, but he lost his starting spot after recording a 7.96 ERA over his first eight outings. He spent the bulk of the season working out of the bullpen, logging a 3.86 ERA over his next 25 relief appearances before finally earning another opportunity to start for the Giants.

Since moving back into the rotation on Sept. 12, Manaea has allowed only four earned runs over 18 innings (2.00 ERA) in three starts, helping to keep the Giants on the fringes of playoff contention.

“He’s just done a really nice job of staying under control through a really rocky and up-and-down kind of season, particularly since he didn’t get those starts sort of in the middle of the season,” manager Gabe Kapler said. “Just kind of staying strong mentally and staying very prepared for a night like this.

“One of the themes of today I think is preparation and being relentless about processes and controlling the things that we can control. Over the course of time, that stuff is going to show up. Sean Manaea has been a good big league pitcher in the past. He’s a good big league pitcher now. It’s starting to really show.”

Manaea said the key to his turnaround was simply “trusting the process, believing in myself and knowing that I’ve got it.” He’ll have the ability to opt out of the final season of his contract, so he could be positioning himself to re-enter the market and land a more lucrative deal in free agency this winter.

“I’m not really worried about any of that stuff,” Manaea said. “We’ll cross that bridge when we get there.”

Manaea departed with a 3-0 lead, but the Dodgers mounted a last-ditch rally against submariner Tyler Rogers in the eighth. After James Outman reached on a two-out single, Rogers got Jason Heyward to swing through a third strike, but the ball got away from catcher Patrick Bailey, allowing Heyward to reach on a passed ball.

Mookie Betts then worked an eight-pitch walk to load the bases for Freddie Freeman, who singled to right field to cut the Giants’ lead to 3-1. Kapler opted to bring in closer Camilo Doval, who coaxed an inning-ending groundout from Will Smith and then worked a 1-2-3 ninth to convert the four-out save.

Fitzgerald, one day removed from his first callup with the Giants, supplied a pair of key insurance runs by launching his first career Major League home run – a two-run shot off Ryan Yarbrough – in the top of the ninth. He became the first Giant to hit his first homer at Dodger Stadium since Brandon Belt on April 1, 2011.

“It was unbelievable,” Fitzgerald said. “I kind of blacked out a little bit. I think I rounded the bases a little too fast. I should have enjoyed it a little bit more. But it was awesome. All the hard work that I’ve put in to be here -- to hit that in the ninth inning, it was pretty special.”