LOS ANGELES – It was a rake n’ bake series.
Max Muncy’s three-run home run in the eighth inning Wednesday afternoon was the 16th home run hit in a three-game series between the Dodgers and San Francisco Giants and the final blow in a four-run, tie-breaking rally that lifted the Dodgers to a 7-3 victory.
Thirty runs were scored in the three-game series, played in the midst of a record-setting California heat wave. Only two were driven in by something other than a home run.
Wednesday’s win cut the Dodgers’ magic number to clinch the NL West down to six. They could clinch a postseason berth as early as Friday, the division as soon as Sunday in San Diego.
The temperature at game time was 99 degrees, making balls fly over fences and leaving those fans brave enough to attend clutching their SPF-50 sunscreen and crowding into any shaded area they could find in the half-empty stadium.
In his second start since returning from his latest back injury, Clayton Kershaw did his part to keep his teammates out of the sun. He allowed five hits in six innings, striking out eight without a walk. He got a healthy 18 swings-and-misses, half on his slider.
One of those sliders rolled over the heart of the plate in the fifth inning and David Villar smacked it over the wall in right-center field for a two-run home run..
The Dodgers stranded six runners on base in the first four innings including getting nothing out of a bases-loaded situation with no outs in the second.
They broke through in the fifth thanks to Justin Turner.
Freddie Freeman led off by slicing a single into left field. Muncy dropped a bunt down the third-base line for a base hit against the shift. Turner took a 1-and-2 splitter from Alex Cobb below the strike zone and lifted it over the wall in left-center for a three-run home run.
Turner dragged a .222 average and .668 OPS into July this season. Since then, though, he has hit .322 (75 for 233) with an OPS for the season now nudging up against .800.
During a 16-game hitting streak that matches his career-high, Turner has gone 26 for 59 (.441) with eight doubles, three home runs and 15 RBI.
But Villar tied the game with his second home run of the game, a solo shot off Justin Bruihl in the seventh inning. It was the last of the Giants’ nine home runs in the series.
The Dodgers untied it in the eighth. Austin Barnes led off with a single, moved to second on a ground out and scored when Trea Turner doubled over Joc Pederson’s head in left field. The tie-breaking run was Turner’s 91st RBI of the season.
After Freeman walked, Muncy launched his third home run in the past two games into the right-field pavilion, putting the game on ice — if any had survived the afternoon.
