SAN FRANCISCO - Brandon Crawford was always going to miss the final two games of this series to attend the funeral of his sister-in-law. The Giants are now hoping an MRI result shows that Crawford won't miss any time beyond his three days on bereavement leave.
Crawford pulled up with a right groin strain as he rounded first on a base hit in the eighth. After jogging a bit in the outfield, he was pulled from the game.
"It tightened up," Crawford said. "I haven't really felt anything like that before. I've never really had anything like this before. It just felt tight. I didn't feel a pop or anything, and from what I hear, that's good news."
Crawford's liner off Kenley Jansen sent Buster Posey from first to third. Cody Bellinger's throw went into third and Crawford was busting it for second when his leg shut down. He said he could feel the pain in his groin as he tried to run it off.
"(Trainer Dave Groeschner) told me it wasn't a great idea to try and push it," Crawford said.
Ordinarily, the Giants would send Crawford for an MRI on Wednesday, but he is flying down to Los Angeles for two days of services. Crawford originally told manager Bruce Bochy that he could be back in time for Friday's game, but the Giants - already playing without Denard Span and with a short bench - were planning to put Crawford on the bereavement list and call up an extra position player.
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Eduardo Nuñez moved over to short in the ninth and he's Crawford's primary backup. Christian Arroyo, called up Monday, can also play the position. The Giants have Kelby Tomlinson and Orlando Calixte on the 40-man and one of them is likely to join the team Wednesday.
--- Arroyo and Bellinger are two of the NL West's top prospects, and they got their first big league hits on the same night. Arroyo got a first-pitch fastball at the letters from Clayton Kershaw and roped it into left field.
"I figured he would come at me," Arroyo said. "I said, ‘Hey man, see a heater and take a good swing at it.' I just envisioned getting (a big league hit) but I didn't think it would be off a guy the caliber of Kershaw. In the moment I was excited. That's something you don't forget."
Arroyo's family won't forget it, either. His parents and two younger siblings were here and they went nuts as Arroyo rounded first. That's always a cool moment.
--- Ty Blach has three big league hits and all of them are off Kershaw.
"Sometimes you just swing hard and get lucky, I guess," he said.
There's only one active pitcher who has more hits against Kershaw than Blach. That's Madison Bumgarner, who has taken him deep twice. A year ago, Bumgarner walked into the video room and asked Matt Duffy if he wanted advice on hitting Kershaw. On Tuesday, he gave Blach some advice.
"Madison before the game came up and said he's going to throw you up and in because he threw it low and away last (year)," Blach said. "I was looking for a pitch in that vicinity."
Bumgarner knows Kershaw well. Blach got a fastball up and he knocked it over a drawn-in outfield for a double.
--- We're 10 paragraphs into this story without a score. The Giants lost 2-1, but it's hard to dissect this one too much. When the Dodgers get 25 outs from Kershaw and Kenley Jansen, they're going to win that game nine out of 10 times.
Kershaw lowered his season ERA to 2.29. The Giants gave him a little bit of trouble early, but he turned it on in the middle innings.
"He settled in and he was as tough as he normally is," manager Bruce Bochy said. "The thing you hope is to create some chances. We had a couple."
The eventual winning run came across on a strange play in the fourth. With runners on the corners, Adrian Gonzalez hit a bouncer to first. Posey looked Justin Turner back to third and then threw to Crawford at second for one out. Crawford spun and fired a strike home to try and get Turner, who had taken off. The throw skipped in the dirt and Nick Hundley couldn't handle it. Turner made it 2-1, and that was that.
Bochy said he had no problem with how that play went down. All the decisions were right, it was just a tough double-play to pull off.
"I'd like to say I should have made a better throw but I got rid of it as fast as I could and I put as much on it as I could," Crawford said.
The Giants were a couple inches behind Turner on Tuesday. On Monday, they were just ahead of him, with Posey picking him off second to end the game. It's been that type of series between these two.
--- I saw a lot of grumbling on Twitter about Yasmani Grandal pulling balls back into the strike zone in the late innings. Be careful what you wish for, Giants fans. Posey might be the best pitch-framer in the game. Any change that would keep guys like Grandal from fooling umps would hurt the Giants more than most.
