After Friday rainout, Giants, Dodgers face off Saturday
SAN FRANCISCO -- The Los Angeles Dodgers and San Francisco Giants were rained out Friday night, but it didn't postpone the inevitable.
The Giants will still have to see Dodgers ace Clayton Kershaw this weekend.
In new pitching matchups announced Friday in the wake just the 33rd rainout in the Giants' 51-year West Coast history, the Dodgers will send left-hander Rich Hill (1-0, 0.00 ERA) against San Francisco righty Chris Stratton (0-1, 5.06) on Saturday afternoon, before Kershaw gets a rematch with Giants lefty Ty Blach in the series finale on Sunday.
Saturday's start time has been pushed back two hours to 3:05 PDT, hoping the rain will have subsided by then. The forecast calls for sunny skies on Sunday.
Kenta Maeda, the Dodgers' scheduled starter for Friday, will move to the bullpen for the weekend.
Hill will be pitching for the first time since he shut out the Giants for six innings in last Sunday's series finale in Los Angeles. The Dodgers won the game 9-0 to salvage a split in a series in which they lost the first two games 1-0, including Opening Day with Kershaw on the mound.
Hill, who has spent a majority of his 14-year career in the American League, has never won at AT&T Park, going 0-1 with a 3.91 ERA in four career starts.
He pitched well in his only San Francisco appearance last season, but surrendered a home run to Brandon Belt and was outpitched by Blach in a 2-1 defeat.
He is 6-2 with a 2.23 ERA in 12 career starts against the Giants.
Hill has had trouble with Belt on more than one occasion. The San Francisco first baseman has gone 5-for-10 in the lefty-on-lefty matchup, with two doubles, the aforementioned homer and two walks.
Stratton, who earned a spot in the Giants' starting rotation only after spring training injuries to Madison Bumgarner and Jeff Samardzija, allowed three runs on five hits in 5 1/3 innings in the loss to Hill on Sunday.
The 27-year-old has logged a 1-2 record and 5.91 ERA in four career games, including three starts, against the Dodgers. He is 4-1 with a 3.67 ERA in all career appearances at AT&T Park.
Yasiel Puig had the big hit against Stratton in Los Angeles -- an RBI double that sent Stratton to the showers in a three-run sixth inning.
Hill probably will not pitch until next week if Saturday's game is rained out. Dodgers manager Dave Roberts has indicated he wants to keep Kershaw on a schedule, and that schedule has him pitching Sunday.
With a day off Thursday and the rainout Friday, the Dodgers will have four days off in an eight-game stretch.
"I appreciate the way that there are off days," Roberts said earlier in the week. "But where they are for us right now, it's not ideal. I guess it beats (playing) 21 days in a row."
The Dodgers, who have off days Monday and Thursday sandwiching a two-game interleague series at home against the Oakland Athletics, have not announced their pitching plans for next week.
Before Friday, the Giants hadn't had a rainout since 2006, so the chances of a second straight have to be considered remote.
Kershaw remains in search of his first win of the season, although his first of two defeats in the past 10 days was hardly his fault.
On Opening Day, he limited the Giants to one run in six innings, but that run -- the product of a Joe Panik home run -- stood up for a 1-0 Giants win.
Blach and four Giants relievers combined on the shutout.
The Giants have announced that Friday's scheduled starter, left-hander Derek Holland, will be pushed back to Monday's series opener against Arizona.
The Giants have not played since their 10-1 victory over the Seattle Mariners on Wednesday.
Andrew McCutchen has had a slow start at the plate for San Francisco, hitting just .083, but he made a key running catch in the outfield to help the Giants' cause Wednesday.
"You ain't getting hits, you've got to try to take them away," McCutchen said, per the San Francisco Chronicle. "Even if you're getting hits you want to take them away, but especially when you're not getting them. You don't want anyone else joining the hit parade."
