Giants absorb 90th loss as clinched Dodgers keep hunting the best record

Finishing a season against a rival that has already punched its ticket is a different kind of assignment. The Giants got the first installment of that test Friday at Dodger Stadium and left with an 8-2 loss that carried a round number nobody wanted.

San Francisco fell to 64-90. Per the AP account carried by ESPN and CBS, it was the club's 90th defeat - the most since the 2017 Giants lost 98. Los Angeles improved to 94-60, already NL West champions and still chasing Milwaukee for the majors' best record and home-field advantage throughout October.

A game that broke in the eighth

Mookie Betts homered twice. Tyler Glasnow (5-1) worked six innings, allowed two runs on three hits, and struck out 10 - a season high. Those lines would have been enough for a routine win. The eighth inning turned it into a statement.

With the Dodgers leading 3-2, Max Muncy and Kyle Tucker went back-to-back to open the frame. Betts and Will Smith then went back-to-back with two outs. Four home runs in one inning, five runs across, and Philip Abner charged with all of them - the second Giants reliever in franchise history, ESPN noted, to allow four homers in a single inning.

Betts had also led off the game with a homer. Reuters and the AP wire both framed the night around his two-homer night and the late barrage as Los Angeles kept playing like a club that still has something to climb for.

What a clinched rival is still playing for

The Dodgers locked up the NL West before this series. That does not make the remaining games ornamental. ESPN's recap placed Los Angeles two games behind Milwaukee for the best record in the majors. Home-field advantage through the postseason is the prize left on the board, and a weekend against San Francisco is a soft-looking schedule spot only if the Giants cooperate.

They did not, early. The game was 3-2 into the eighth. Then the ball started leaving the yard in pairs. For a Dodgers roster still sorting health and October roles - Edwin Díaz's return from the injured list was part of the same night's notes - nights like this are useful even when the division race is over. They are less useful for the visitors.

The Giants' closing problem

A 90-loss season is not a September narrative that arrives overnight. It is the accumulation of a year that has already answered most of its questions. What remains is how a club finishes against the neighbor that just won the division again - whether at-bats stay sharp, whether young arms and position players treat Dodger Stadium weekends as auditions or as calendar squares.

Bryce Eldridge was a late scratch with a head laceration, another small disruption on a night that did not need more. The series continues Saturday and Sunday in Los Angeles. The standings will not change the Giants' October plans either way.

They will decide whether the final week against a clinched rival looks like competitive baseball or like a club playing out the string while the Dodgers tune up for a deeper run.

Friday was the former for six innings and the latter for one. Four homers in the eighth made the difference feel larger than the earlier 3-2 margin. Glasnow's 10 strikeouts set the tone. Betts supplied the power. The Giants supplied the 90th loss, and the reminder that finishing against a champion still chasing the best record is a hard way to close a difficult year.

Sources

ESPN

CBS Sports

Reuters