Dodgers Shape October Roles as Giants Rivalry Reaches a Turning Point

LOS ANGELES — The Dodgers’ 3–1 victory over the San Francisco Giants brought Los Angeles closer to securing a first-round bye, but the club is using the final six games of the regular season to settle postseason roster mechanics and pitching alignment.

The Dodgers are 96-60 and lead the Atlanta Braves by four games for the National League’s No. 2 seed. That position would send Los Angeles directly into the National League Division Series and provide home-field advantage for the round. The Dodgers have won 14 of their past 17 games.

Their next three-game series against the San Diego Padres will also bring several key players back from the injured list. Outfielder Andy Pages is scheduled to be activated Tuesday, followed shortly by designated hitter Shohei Ohtani and right-handed pitcher Roki Sasaki.

“We’ll get Andy back on Tuesday, which will be great, and then shortly thereafter we’ll get Shohei back. So yeah, things are starting to come together,” Dodgers manager Dave Roberts said. “We’re in a good spot.”

The Dodgers are also testing possible October roles. Right-hander Emmet Sheehan made his first relief appearance Sunday after starting 22 games during the regular season. He struck out nine batters, one shy of his season high, and allowed one hit and one walk over 5 1/3 innings.

“If there is a role in the postseason, it will be out of the [bull]pen,” Roberts said regarding Sheehan’s outlook.

Rookie outfielder Josue De Paula recorded his third multi-hit game Sunday and extended his hitting streak to four games. He is establishing himself as a primary left-handed bat off the bench, while utility player Hyeseong Kim is expected to rejoin the major league club after the Triple-A playoffs.

Kim has spent the past four months in the minor leagues and is being considered for a postseason role as a pinch-runner and late-inning defensive replacement. “My expectation is that Hyeseong will be here during the off week and potentially be a conversation for the postseason because he has the ability to run, play defense, and steal a base,” Roberts said.

San Francisco opened the scoring in the first inning against Dodgers opener Jack Dreyer. Johan Cox drew a leadoff walk, advanced on an errant throw from Dreyer, stole second, and scored on Victor Bericoto’s single. The Giants had only one more hit the rest of the game, a sixth-inning single by Jung Hoo Lee.

Los Angeles finished with 11 hits and tied the game in the sixth inning when Tommy Edman hit a solo home run just inside the right-field foul pole. It was his seventh homer of the season.

Max Muncy singled underneath a sliding Cox at second base in the seventh, and De Paula followed with a single. Kiké Hernández then hit a go-ahead RBI double to center field for a 2–1 Dodgers lead. Muncy delivered again in the eighth, singling with two outs to drive in Teoscar Hernández and make it 3–1.

Freddie Freeman ended an 0-for-11 slide with a broken-bat single in the fourth inning and added another single in the eighth. The result came as Los Angeles prepared for its 14th consecutive postseason appearance and its fifth straight National League West title.

San Francisco, meanwhile, has moved into a rebuild. The Giants have exceeded 90 losses for the first time since 2017, will miss the postseason for a fifth consecutive year, and have had only one winning season in the past six years. They have also failed to win a season series against Los Angeles since 2021.

The San Diego Padres have finished second to the Dodgers in the NL West in four of the past five seasons, replacing San Francisco as Los Angeles’ primary threat in the division. “It’s certainly a rivalry in the sense of the history, the fan bases,” Roberts said. “But obviously it’s about relevancy. The Padres have been successful the last handful of years, and so it’s certainly built some momentum. The geography lends itself to that too. But Dodgers-Giants is always fun.”

The Dodgers-Giants matchup was first played in 1889, when the franchises were known as the Brooklyn Bridegrooms and the New York Giants. It is the second-most played fixture in Major League Baseball history, behind only the series between the Pittsburgh Pirates and Chicago Cubs. The franchises moved west together before the 1958 season, establishing bases in Los Angeles and San Francisco.

More than 13 decades and over 2,500 meetings have produced a narrow Dodgers advantage in the all-time series, 1,294 to 1,292. The two organizations also have more National League pennants, World Series appearances, and Hall of Fame inductees wearing their caps than any other teams in the senior circuit.

Logan Webb, a Northern California native who came through San Francisco’s farm system, said the rivalry remains visible despite the standings gap. “It’s always a rivalry,” the Giants pitcher said. “We’d like to make it a little closer when it comes to the standings. But I definitely feel it when I throw against them.”

Webb said veteran players must explain the competitive history to younger teammates. “I think there are still guys that came up in the system that know what it’s like,” Webb said. “It’s my job to kind of hype these guys up to play a game like this.”

Giants coach Ron Washington made his major league playing debut with the Dodgers in 1977 and said roster turnover can weaken young players’ understanding of the rivalry. “It should be a rivalry,” Washington said. “But I don’t think the young kids we got know anything about a rivalry. They’re not history buffs.”