Giants Lose To Dodgers, Fall Below .500
LOS ANGELES (CBS / AP) -- Matt Kemp made a marvelous catch for the final out in his first game back from the disabled list to preserve the Los Angeles Dodgers' 6-5 victory over the slumping San Francisco Giants on Tuesday night.
Mark Ellis and Hanley Ramirez each hit a two-run homer for the Dodgers, and rookie Stephen Fife pitched effectively into the seventh inning. Los Angeles handed the defending World Series champions their third loss in a row and eighth in 11 games, dropping them under .500 for the first time since losing to the Dodgers on opening day.
It's the latest the Giants have been below the break-even mark in any season since 2008, when they finished 72-90 in Bruce Bochy's second year as manager.
Fife (2-2) allowed three runs and four hits, including solo homers by Brandon Belt and NL MVP Buster Posey, in 6 2-3 innings. The 26-year-old right-hander struck out three and walked two in his 11th major league start, only the second in which he gave up more than two runs.
Kemp, a two-time Gold Glove winner, returned to the lineup after missing 24 games with a right hamstring strain. He was injured May 29 while running down a double in right-center by Mike Trout at Angel Stadium. It was the fourth time in his career that Kemp landed on the DL, including two stints last season because of a left hamstring strain that cost him a combined 51 games.
With closer Kenley Jansen unavailable after pitching three consecutive days, demoted closer Brandon League came on in the ninth to protect a 6-3 lead and did not retire any of the three batters he faced.
Belt hit an RBI double and Andres Torres added an RBI single off League before Paco Gonzalez got three outs for his first major league save. With runners at first and second, Marco Scutaro hit a long drive to center but Kemp raced back and reached over his shoulder to make a sliding catch on the warning track, ending the game.
A fired-up Kemp popped up and smacked the wall hard, then shouted in excitement.
Mike Kickham (0-2) was charged with six runs—five earned—and eight hits over 5 1-3 innings in his second big league start. The 24-year-old lefty was recalled by the Giants from Triple-A Fresno to fill in for Chad Gaudin, who was struck on his pitching elbow by a line drive off the bat of Miami's Derek Dietrich last Thursday and placed on the 15-day disabled list shortly before Monday night's series opener.
The Dodgers broke a 2-all tie with four runs in the sixth. Adrian Gonzalez doubled with one out and Ramirez followed with a drive off the left-field foul pole on a 1-1 count for his fifth homer. Kickham gave up singles to his next two batters before rookie Jake Dunning came in and gave up an RBI single by Tim Federowicz.
Nick Punto kept the inning alive when he beat the relay throw to first base with a headfirst slide on a potential double-play grounder. Andre Ethier then scored on Dunning's wild pitch to Fife.
Belt, who was 3 for 4 after coming in 4 for 43 lifetime at Dodger Stadium, got one of the runs back for the Giants in the seventh with his eighth homer.
Fife retired his first 11 batters before Posey drove an 0-1 pitch barely over the left-field fence for his ninth homer. The Giants tied it in the fifth on a run-scoring groundout by Torres, after Fife gave up singles to Hunter Pence and Belt and then threw a wild pitch to Torres that crossed up Federowicz.
Ellis opened the scoring with his fourth homer, a two-run shot to left with two outs in the third after Federowicz led off with a double.
NOTES: Ellis' home run was the 103rd of his career and fourth against San Francisco. When he was on the other side of the Bay Bridge with the Oakland A's, he set a franchise record for second basemen with 19 in 2007. ... Punto, starting at 3B while Juan Uribe got the night off, jumped to pull down Pablo Sandoval's line drive in the second inning. Pence, the next batter, lifted a popup toward the stands and Punto stretched over the barrier before landing in the first row with the ball in his glove. ... Kemp was 1 for 4 with a single. He is homerless in 106 at-bats at Dodger Stadium since his two-run shot off Colorado's Jorge De La Rosa last Sept. 20. ... The Giants have been outhomered 19-5 over their last 15 games. ... The Dodgers, who were 11-13 in Kemp's absence, opened a roster spot for him by optioning INF-OF Elian Herrera to Triple-A Albuquerque. ... Giants CF Angel Pagan had surgery in Los Angeles to repair a tendon in his left hamstring, an injury that has sidelined him since May 26.
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