It took until their 17th game of the regular season, but the Giants finally got their first quality start of 2020. They subsequently squandered it.

Kevin Gausman delivered the most dominant outing of the season for the Giants, but he was denied his first win in a San Francisco uniform after reliever Tyler Rogers surrendered a go-ahead, three-run home run to AJ Pollock that propelled the Dodgers to a 6-2 win on Sunday afternoon at Dodger Stadium.

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The hard-throwing Gausman carried a shutout bid into the seventh inning, but he was pulled after allowing a one-out single to Cody Bellinger. He walked off the mound with a 2-0 lead and departed after throwing only 80 pitches, the last of which was clocked at 99.3 mph, his fastest offering of the afternoon.

“It was just a hot day,” manager Gabe Kapler said when asked about the decision to remove Gausman. “Seventh time up. Third time through the toughest part of the order. He had done a tremendous job. He had carried his stuff into that inning. He had carried his location into that inning. It just felt like the right time to keep him healthy, strong and safe all the way through the season based on getting into the seventh for the first time.”

Kapler replaced Gausman with Rogers, who worked two scoreless innings on Saturday but did not look as sharp on his second consecutive day of work. Rogers yielded a single to Justin Turner to put a pair of runners on for Pollock, who was displeased by a called strike by home-plate umpire Adam Hamari that forced a full count. One pitch later, Pollock drove a curveball out to left field for a three-run shot that put the Dodgers ahead, 3-2.

“One of the things that we really, really like about Rogers is his ability to put the ball on the ground,” Kapler said. “Obviously, part of the reason he was in that game was to get a ground ball, and he wasn’t able to do that today.”

Los Angeles later broke the game open in the eighth on a three-run homer by Mookie Betts off Shaun Anderson.

Gausman was charged with one run on three hits -- all singles -- over 6 1/3 innings. He struck out six and walked none in his fourth appearance of the season. His performance was a heartening development for the club’s rotation, which is down two starters following the injuries to Drew Smyly (finger sprain) and Jeff Samardzija (shoulder inflammation).

“I definitely felt like I had more in the tank,” Gausman said. “My limit is not 80 pitches, but Kap’s job is to make those decisions. That’s his job description. I’m not the one who is calling down to the bullpen, getting guys loose and that type of thing. Obviously, I thought I pitched well enough to kind of warrant getting a couple more guys out, but he was trying to win a series and it was a hot day. Maybe those were factors in his decision.”

Kapler also drew scrutiny for his in-game management on Saturday, when he stuck with Johnny Cueto even after he appeared to be bothered by a blister on his right foot. Cueto, who was fresh off losing a no-hit bid on a lost fly ball by left fielder Hunter Pence, was allowed to stay in the game in the sixth to face Justin Turner, who promptly crushed a three-run shot to bring the Dodgers within one. The Giants (7-10) ultimately hung on for a 5-4 win, but they missed out on a chance to clinch a series victory at Dodger Stadium after Kapler’s pitching change backfired on Sunday.

“The goal is not to have [Gausman] be at his best for one outing,” Kapler said. “It’s to be at his best for multiple outings, and as long as we can have him fresh and strong, we want to do that as well. It’s striking a balance between now and the future. At the same time, my job is to make a decision on who the best option is to get the next one, two or three hitters out. And in that moment, my observation was that Rogers was the best option for that.”

Mike Yastrzemski accounted for the Giants’ entire offensive output with a two-run single off former Vanderbilt teammate Walker Buehler in the fifth inning. After Pablo Sandoval walked and Austin Slater reached on a hit-by-pitch, Yastrzemski lined a two-out, two-strike breaking ball to center field to give the Giants a 2-0 lead.

The Giants mustered only one other hit against the Dodgers -- an eighth-inning infield single by Donovan Solano that extended the longest active hitting streak in the Majors to 14 games.