San Francisco Giants’ Brandon Crawford prepares for the pitch by Los Angeles Dodgers starting pitcher Bobby Millerm during the first inning at Oracle Park in San Francisco on Sun Oct 1, 2023 (AP News photo)

Los Angeles (100-62) 000 005 000. – 5. 7. 1

San Francisco (79-83). 000 001 010. – 2. 3. 0

Sunday, October 1, 2023

Time: 2:44

Attendance: 38,350

By Lewis Rubman

SAN FRANCISCO–This the way the world ends This is the way the world ends This is the way the world ends Not with a bang but a whimper. —T.S. Eliot, “The Hollow Men”

It wasn’t the end of the world, and the Giants’ season ended with both a whimper and a few bangs in a 5-2 loss to the NL West’s division winning Los Angeles Dodgers. Of course, one team’s bang is another team’s wimper, which is one of the beauties of baseball. Teams don’t compete to reach some abstract, context free goal; they play against each other.

Casey Stengel was right when he said that good pitching always beats good hitting and vice versa. The interplay between hitting and pitching, the confrontation, goes to the heart of the came. The Spanish philosopher José Ortega y Gasset’s dictum applies: I am myself and my circumstances.

Brian Crawford received a two minute standing ovation just before the first pitch was thrown at 1:06. He would be the Giants’ leadoff batter in the bottom of the first, having been reinstated from the IL to make what is very likely to be his farewell performance. It was Crawford’s 1,655th major league game, all of them as a Giant. The ovations came and went as frequently as the “SELL TEAM” chants do in Oakland or the exhortation to “BEAT LA” do in SF.

The last and loudest came as the ninth inning began and Crawford embraced his teammates and walked off the field, replaced by Marco Luciano at short. The old guard had passed. Crawford was the only remaining Giant from the 2014 World Series champions.

San Francisco sent their latest highly touted rookie, southpaw Kyle Harrison, to the mound. He had gone 1-1,4.85 in his brief, six game, career in the show. He plunked two consecutive batters but got through the first inning without any other trouble, which cleared the way for another ovation when Crawford came to bat and yet another when he went down swinging.

Crawford remained in the game and ended his career by going 0 for 4 with two strikeouts. My score card shows him making one put out and no assists.

Having righted the ship, Harrison returned to the mound in the second and pitched until John Brebbia relieved him to start the visitors’ sixth.

Harrison had gone five frames without allowing a hit, although he did hit his work after throwing five innings of no hit baseball, although he did hit three Dodgers with pitches and walk another two. It took him 94 pitches, 61 for strikes to get through the 20 Angelinos he faced. The youngster was not involved in the decision and so finished his first big season at 1-1, 4.15.

The Dodgers also sent a rookie to the mound. Bob Miller came to Los Angeles with three years of minor league experience, during which he went 10-10, 3.79. In the bigs, he had gone 11-4, 3.89 before today. His last previous start came on September 26, when he gave up two runs, both earned, to the Rockies over seven innings in Coors Field.

The Giants mauled him in his only other start against them, getting to him for seven hits and seven runs, all earned, in 5-2/3 innings. This afternoon he lasted a mere four innings against San Francisco, but he shut them out over that stretch, allowing only one hit and one walk.

His pitch count was 57, with 38 strikes. Victor González, who went on to garner the win and now is 3-3, 4.01, replaced him for the fifth and set the Giants down in order. Like Harrison, Miller to settle for. a no decision. He closed the book on the 2023 regular season at 11-4, 3.76.

John Brebbia replaced Harrison at the start of the visitors’ sixth and was ineffective. He faced three batters, the first and third of whom, Will Smith and Max Muncy, reached base on a single and walk, respectively. Both of them scored on singles allowed by Taylor Rogers, Brebbia’s. replacement, and the runs were charged to Brebbia. Kike Hernández’s home run to left, however, and the three runs batted in that came with it were all charged to Taylor’s account. Ross Stirling relieved replaced Taylor with Los Angeles ahead, 5-0.

Ryan Pepiot, listed as a starter, was on the mound replacing González for Los Angeles when Casey Schmidt led off the home sixth with a 377 foot round tripper to left, his fourth dinger in his short span with the Giants. That fig leaf made it a 5-1 ball game.

Schmidt made it two in a row when, leading off the Giants’ half of the eighth, he sent Pepiot’s first offering, an 88.3mph slider into the left center field bleachers, 389 feet from, which it left at 106.3mph.

Evan Phillips set the Giants down in order to earn his 24th save. Brebbia was the losing pitcher and ended his season at 3-5, 3.99.

The Giants’ next game is scheduled for Thursday, March 28, 2024, against the Padres in San Diego. The probable starters haven’t been announced yet.