LOS ANGELES — As Blake Snell’s market continued to drag this spring, the Los Angeles Dodgers quietly dipped their toes in the water. They had watched Snell dominate them so many times that it only made sense that they would try to sign him, but the Dodgers wanted more of a commitment than the Giants ultimately got from Snell, who can opt out after this season.
On Monday, Snell looked every bit like the pitcher the Dodgers tried to add to their billion-dollar offseason. And the Giants continued to look every bit like the team that needed that jolt last offseason.
A 3-2 loss at Dodger Stadium was the third in four games on this road trip, which has included just 11 total runs despite the lineup playing three games at Coors Field and then facing a pitcher making his MLB debut. Snell did his part, allowing two runs over six innings, but there were too many mistakes elsewhere.
It started in the first inning, when Jorge Soler drew a leadoff walk and then was thrown out at third while trying to take advantage of a bobble on LaMonte Wade Jr.’s single to left. The Giants would not score, and the decision allowed River Ryan to settle in.
Seven innings later, Luis Matos and Heliot Ramos nearly collided while chasing down a fly ball to deep left. It landed between them for a leadoff double, and when Teoscar Hernandez drove a single up the middle a few minutes later, the Dodgers had the lead for good.
“Heliot called it,” manager Bob Melvin said in a quiet clubhouse. “When it got close and it felt like they were going to run into each other, he backed off.”
Young players are going to make mistakes, but right now the older Giants are doing the same, and this is a lineup that at the moment looks incapable of hitting itself out of trouble. The lone exception on this trip has been Tyler Fitzgerald, who homered for a fourth straight game. Melvin said Fitzgerald looks more confident and calm now that he has an everyday role, and perhaps in an odd way, he is sending a message to the front office.
The Giants are walking parallel paths as the trade deadline approaches. They have kept this season’s core intact while trying to insert young players who will make up the future, but at times it has gotten awkward. Fitzgerald only has taken off because the Giants finally have given him the runway to do so.
Matos is perhaps the best example of the current awkwardness. The 22-year-old has made just four starts this month, even with Austin Slater now elsewhere. But because he is on the roster, he is still counted on to come through in big spots. He pinch-hit for Michael Conforto with the go-ahead run on third and one out in the sixth and struck out. Two innings later, it was the defense that came up short.
Matos will be a big part of the future in San Francisco. Ramos will be, too. More and more, Fitzerald looks like part of the solution, and you can say the same for Erik Miller, who struck out Shohei Ohtani for the fourth time in four matchups this year.
A future core is starting to emerge, but the Giants still are hoping this year’s starters can lead them back into the race. Over the first few days of the first half, there haven’t been any tangible signs that it’s coming, although they haven’t lost hope, even as the days continue to tick off until the trade deadline.
“Yeah we’re going through it right now, but we have a lot of games left,” Fitzgerald said. “I know nobody is happy with the way the second half has started — the fans, us, but what are you going to do? We’ve just got to come back and keep working hard and hopefully we can turn it around and we can all kind of get hot at the same time.”
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