Game #4: San Francisco Giants vs. Los Angeles Dodgers (04/07/2016)

As the San Francisco Giants plane touched down in the Bay Area for the first time this regular season, the team was finally allowed to shift their focus from the Midwest to their home-opening opponent – the rival Los Angeles Dodgers.

Entering this afternoon’s contest, the Dodgers boasted a 3-0 regular season record, and were yet to allow a single run on the young campaign.

And backed by deceptive left-hander Alex Wood, today’s game seemed prime to continue this undesirable Los Angeles trend.

Indeed, following a pair of unlucky breaks for San Francisco, Los Angeles managed to convert two early strikes in the second inning, immediately putting the Giants in a formidable situation.

Nevertheless, the Dodgers did not seem content with this 2-0 advantage, as Adrian Gonzalez batted in Yasiel Puig in the third inning, and Scott Van Slyke knocked in Corey Seager in the fifth.

When the bottom half of the fifth inning rolled around, the Giants seemed to be in serious jeopardy of dropping their Home Opener to a long-time nemesis.

Trailing by the score of 4-0 with Los Angeles pitcher Alex Wood commanding a minuscule pitch-count, San Francisco knew that their window to produce a comeback was drawing to an uninviting close.

And in that moment, with this very mindset, the tables would finally begin to turn.

Giants’ shortstop Brandon Crawford led off the inning with a walk, which was quickly followed by a Kelby Tomlinson bunt that put two men aboard with nobody out – San Francisco was now in business.

As the Giants methodically crawled their way back into the game, the AT&T Park crowd began gaining enthusiasm.

Slowly but surely, the highly-anticipated comeback would begin.

Denard Span brought Brandon Crawford home on an infield ground ball – 1-4.

Joe Panik tripled into right-center field to score Kelby Tomlinson – 2-4.

Buster Posey shot one down the left-field line – Joe Panik trotted home and it was now 3-4.

When Chris Heston replaced Giants’ starter Jake Peavy (who had battled through five innings of work) in the top of the sixth, San Francisco found themselves undeniably cemented back into the contest.

After a “1-2-3” inning from Heston, the Giants’ offense was poised to strike once more in the sixth.

And courtesy of additional marvelous table-setting, it was Angel Pagan who ripped a base hit into right field to score Matt Duffy and Brandon Crawford – San Francisco finally had their first advantage of the afternoon, leading 5-4.

Later in the inning, Joe Panik would smack one into center field, scoring Angel Pagan – this was followed by a Buster Posey line-drive into left field to score Joe Panik.

Somehow, inexplicably, the San Francisco Giants had tallied seven unanswered runs, and now led the game by the score of 7-4.

And although Joc Pederson launched a two-run blast into right-center field in the top of the eighth (7-6 San Francisco), the determined Giants were unwilling to relinquish their slim advantage.

In the bottom of the eighth inning, after an additional San Francisco score, it was a Hunter Pence GRAND SLAM to left-center field that would ultimately put the finishing touches on the afternoon’s highly improbable comeback run.

The Giants will hope to repeat their successes and correct their failures with Matt Cain on the hill tomorrow evening.

FINAL SCORE: Giants 12, Dodgers 6.