SAN FRANCISCO — It was a four-inning wellness check.
Pitching for the first time since he left his start in Cincinnati after one inning with groin muscle discomfort, Blake Snell passed his test. He allowed one run on five hits in his four innings Saturday afternoon as the Dodgers beat the San Francisco Giants 4-3 on Kiké Hernandez’s ninth-inning home run.
The Dodgers will finish the season with a chance to reach 100 victories for the first time since 2023 – but the fourth time in the past six seasons and sixth time in the past nine full seasons.
Snell was healthy if not efficient. He threw 77 pitches to get through his four innings, allowing hits in each inning.
He stranded runners at the corners in the first inning and at second base in the second. Jonah Cox led off the third with a double into the left-field corner, stole third and scored on a sacrifice fly. Snell gave up a two-out single in the fourth but Shay Whitcomb was thrown out by left fielder Teoscar Hernandez when he tried to stretch it into a double.
After the game in Cincinnati, Snell expressed confidence that he had avoided serious injury by recognizing the signs early and coming out of the game – something he didn’t do before landing on the injured list four previous times with groin injuries.
Saturday supported that decision. Snell’s fastball averaged 96.8 mph (up slightly from his season average) and he got 10 swings-and-misses (though only three strikeouts). Snell now lines up as the likely Game 3 starter in the National League Division Series, giving him over a week before his next start.
The Dodgers’ offense gave Snell a 3-1 lead.
Mookie Betts hit a solo home run in the third inning – his seventh home run in September as he surges over the final month of the season. Four singles and a walk produced two more runs in the fourth inning.
After a two-hit game including an RBI double Thursday, Shohei Ohtani has gone 1 for 9 with five strikeouts in the two games against the Giants. The lone hit was a ground ball under the glove of Giants first baseman Brett Harris in the fourth inning that was originally ruled an error and later changed.
The Dodgers’ bullpen couldn’t hold the 3-1 lead. The Giants came back to tie it with single runs against Brock Stewart in the seventh and Evan Phillips in the eighth before Hernandez put the Dodgers back in the lead with a leadoff home run in the ninth.