Homers don't hold up in Giants' walk-off loss

LOS ANGELES -- As he watched Tyler Rogers take his warmup throws in the bottom of the ninth inning on Tuesday night, Giants manager Gabe Kapler turned to pitching coach Andrew Bailey and expressed concern that the 30-year-old sidewinder looked a bit off.

“I leaned over to Bailes, I said, ‘That was not a good warmup for him,’” Kapler said. “He was just kind of having trouble finding the strike zone.”

Kapler’s concerns turned out to be warranted, as Rogers subsequently surrendered a pinch-hit, three-run home run to Will Smith that resulted in a stunning 8-6 walk-off loss to the Dodgers.

It was a gut-wrenching defeat for the Giants, who blasted four home runs but allowed a five-run lead to slip away following stumbles from John Brebbia and Rogers.

Left-hander Alex Wood departed with a 6-2 lead after going five-plus innings in his first start since July 7, but the Dodgers pulled within one by scoring three runs in the sixth. Brebbia took over for Wood with a runner on first and no outs, but he gave up an RBI double to Austin Barnes, followed by a two-run homer to Chris Taylor -- his second of the night -- to continue his uneven return from Tommy John surgery.

The Giants took a 6-5 lead into the bottom of the ninth, but Rogers, who had pitched only once in the previous eight days, quickly fell into trouble after issuing back-to-back walks to Taylor and Matt Beaty to open the inning. That brought up Smith, who pummeled a misplaced slider from Rogers halfway up the left-field bleachers for a walk-off blast that evened this four-game series between the archivals and cut the Giants’ lead for first place in the National League West to one game.

“I’m going to chalk tonight up as an outlier because I have to,” Rogers said. “I’m a baseball player, and we’re playing tomorrow.”

Rogers, who entered Tuesday with a 1.43 ERA and a team-high 43 appearances, has said that he pitches better when he’s used more frequently, but he said he didn’t think the recent layoff caused by the All-Star break factored into his performance on Tuesday. Kapler, for his part, said he’s looking forward to getting Rogers back on the mound for the Giants to give him a chance to move on and turn the page as quickly as possible.

“Let me just say this now that I have the opportunity,” Kapler said. “I can’t wait to get Tyler Rogers back out on the mound. He’s been a warrior for us all year long. He’s been an elite reliever in this league and has thrown some of our biggest innings. Everybody has a hiccup. Obviously, this is a disappointing loss, but I could not have more faith in Tyler Rogers.”

Brebbia and Rogers’ missteps came one night after the Giants’ bullpen delivered perhaps its best performance of the year. Kevin Gausman went only three innings in his shortest start of the year on Monday, but the club’s relievers came in to fire six shutout innings to lock down an eventual 7-2 win.

The Giants were rolling early on Tuesday, too. San Francisco turned a one-run deficit into a 2-1 lead on Alex Dickerson’s two-run shot off opener Darien Núñez in the second inning and kept adding on after LaMonte Wade Jr., Thairo Estrada and Mike Yastrzemski each went deep against top Dodgers prospect Josiah Gray, who made his Major League debut on Tuesday.

Still, Kapler’s bullpen options were limited after using Zack Littell, Jarlín García, Dominic Leone, Jay Jackson and Jake McGee to cover six innings the night before. He turned to Brebbia in the sixth, but the 31-year-old veteran continued to struggle, bumping his ERA to 6.10 ERA over 11 appearances this year.

“I think Brebbia has been around long enough to be able to come into a game with a runner on first base,” Kapler said. “What we saw was he settled in nicely, he started executing his slider, but he threw four straight batters first-pitch sliders. Every once in a while, you get a good hitter like Chris Taylor who is going to sit on one. Even if it was a well-executed pitch, sometimes they sit on it and they put a great swing on it. I think that’s what happened there.”

García and McGee came on for the second straight night to record big outs for the Giants, but Rogers ultimately couldn’t close it out in the end.

“Those are going to happen,” Wood said. “He’s been so nails. Our bullpen has been so nails all year. When you give free passes to a good team like that, it usually doesn’t turn out well a lot of times. We’ll flip the page, come back tomorrow and get ready to play.”