Dodgers walk off with a Giant roar

The eyes of Yasiel Puig sparked it all, inspiring the brouhaha that ended an ace’s bid for a shutout, opened the door for a furious ninth-inning comeback and granted the Los Angeles Dodgers a stranglehold on the National League West after a 2-1 victory over the San Francisco Giants on Monday night.
The game ended in the bottom of the ninth, after a single by Justin Turner tied the score and a double by Adrian Gonzalez crashed into the wall in right field. Corey Seager swam across the plate as a swarm of Dodgers engulfed Gonzalez near second base.
In the middle of the pack was Puig, who created an opening for this madness two innings prior. And all it took was a sideways glance at pitcher Madison Bumgarner, starting the chain of events that led to a six-game lead in the division with 12 games to play.
“Don’t look at me,” Bumgarner barked after Puig ran through first base and stared at Bumgarner as the seventh inning ended. “Don’t look at me.”
Puig did not break eye contact. He had jousted with Bumgarner verbally before, when Bumgarner hollered at him after a home run in 2014. This time was different. Bumgarner was in the midst of a one-man demolition of the Dodgers, with 10 strikeouts recorded and one hit allowed. But his night was about to end.
“What?” Puig said. “What are you going to do to me?”
The two men mixed expletives into their speech, heightening the rhetoric as they drew closer. All around them, the benches and bullpens emptied. Puig pawed at Giants outfielder Hunter Pence. Puig was escorted toward centre field. Bumgarner thrashed in the arms of his teammates near his own dugout, trying to break free.
Nothing came of the row. There were no punches, no ejections, nothing but bluster and bile. But the rage of Bumgarner took him out of the game.
San Francisco manager Bruce Bochy turned to his bullpen. The relievers did what they have done so often in the second half of this season: They turned the game into ash. “To see him come out of the game, there was a little relief on our part,” Dodgers manager Dave Roberts said.
The Dodgers did not make an out in the ninth. Andrew Toles led off with a single. Seager followed with the same. After Turner roped a score-tying hit against Hunter Strickland, Gonzalez ended it with his drive.
The late-night comeback overshadowed a quality outing from Clayton Kershaw. He logged six innings and allowed one unearned run. Roberts lifted him for a pinch-hitter to start the sixth after 88 pitches. Kershaw struck out seven and yielded three singles.
The lone run galled Kershaw. It resulted from an infield single by third baseman Eduardo Nunez, a stolen base, a throwing error by catcher Yasmani Grandal and a wild pitch. No other Giant reached second base against Kershaw.
In three starts back from the disabled list, Kershaw continues to show promising life on his fastball and faltering command on his off-speed pitches. Neither his slider nor his curveball co-operated in reliable fashion Monday.
He managed to secure better results in his final two innings, retiring the last seven batters he faced. At 7:08pm, Kershaw climbed atop the mound at Dodger Stadium in a game for the first time since 2016. During the 91-day interval, he received the diagnosis of a herniated disk, received an epidural injection, experienced a setback after a simulated outing July 16, listened to his manager openly ponder the possibility of season-ending surgery, endured hours of physical therapy to rebuild the strength in his back and watched his team run away with the West.
For the Dodgers, the return of Kershaw heightens the possibility for a team with dreams of ending a 28-year championship drought. Kershaw recovered from an unsteady, three-inning appearance in Miami on September 9 to supply five innings of one-hit baseball last week at Yankee Stadium. On Monday, San Francisco presented another test.
Kershaw’s only problem came in the third inning. He had picked up an 0-and-2 count on outfielder Angel Pagan and tried to bury the outfielder with a slider. The pitch bounced into the other batter’s box and jumped Grandal’s right shoulder.
Kershaw did not even attempt to cover the plate before Nunez scored. There was no point in wasting the energy.
But the ballpark crackled with life as the seventh inning came to a close. Puig owned the only hit of the evening against Bumgarner, a double off the wall in the second inning. This time, he tapped a grounder toward the mound. Bumgarner spun and made the throw. As he headed for his dugout, Bumgarner saw Puig looking at him. That was all it took.

RESULTS
Kansas City     8     White Sox     3
Boston     5     Baltimore     2
Atlanta     7     NY Mets     3
Miami     4     Washington     3
Chicago Cubs     5     Cincinnati     2
Texas     3     LA Angels     2
St. Louis     5     Colorado     3
Houston     4     Oakland     2
San Diego     3     Arizona     2
LA Dodgers     2     San Francisco     1
Toronto     3     Seattle     2