How Huge Giants-Dodgers Clash Has Changed the NL Playoff Picture

For the first time in a decade, the San Francisco Giants and Los Angeles Dodgers are locked in a heavyweight bout, with the National League West on the line. 

Since 2005, the hated rivals have never been fewer than seven games apart when one team won the division. In other words, the rivalry has been mostly one-sided, though the winning side has fluctuated. 

This year, the fight is on.

Give Round 1, resoundingly, to the Dodgers. 

By taking two of three from the Giants at AT&T Park, the Dodgers increased their division lead to three games and remained just half a game behind the Washington Nationals for the best record in the NL.

The Giants, meanwhile, saw a chance to stun their Southern California nemesis and grab hold of first place slip away.

The fight started auspiciously for the Orange and Black. In the series opener Friday night, San Francisco delivered a haymaker, scoring four runs in the first inning en route to a 9-0 rout.

Marcio Jose Sanchez/Associated Press

Left-hander Madison Bumgarner struck out nine through seven innings, and the offense erupted.

Shortstop Brandon Crawford and first baseman Travis Ishikawa had six RBI between them, and each smacked a home run. Ishikawa's bomb landed in the water beyond the right-field wall.

The Dodgers, meanwhile, got soaked.

“The Giants have been hotter than any team in the National League, and we saw that firsthand tonight,” L.A. catcher A.J. Ellis said after the game, per Henry Schulman of SFGate.com.

How quickly things can change.

On Saturday, Los Angeles put up a four-spot of its own in the first inning against veteran Tim Hudson, whose sinker wasn't sinking.

Thearon W. Henderson/Getty Images

The Dodgers were just getting started. They scored four more in the second to chase Hudson then unloaded on bullpen-banished Tim Lincecum.

When the dust finally settled, the scoreboard looked like a joke. The Dodgers plated 17 runs on a ridiculous 24 hits, the most ever at AT&T.

Giants manager Bruce Bochy summed it up after the historic drubbing, per MLB.com's Chris Haft: "They punched back. We got knocked out early."

As the Giants attempted to pick themselves up off the mat Sunday, they saw Clayton Kershaw, the ace of aces, staring down at them.

Mark J. Terrill/Associated Press

The good news for the Giants: They pushed two runs across against the stud left-hander, a minor coup.

The bad news: Starter Yusmeiro Petit, the surprising journeyman who replaced Lincecum in the rotation, surrendered four runs, including a two-run bomb to Matt Kemp.

And that was it. Two days after a series-opening rout left them brimming with hope and visions of grandeur, the Giants were battered, beaten and squarely in second place.

The Giants' playoff odds are still excellent. They're three games ahead of the Pittsburgh Pirates for the top wild-card spot entering play Monday, and they play nine of their remaining 12 games against the bottom-feeding San Diego Padres and Arizona Diamondbacks.

And there will be a rematch, a three-game set at Dodger Stadium Sept. 22-24. Assuming they don't lose more ground in the meantime, the Giants will get another crack at the division.

George Nikitin/Associated Press

The Dodgers, though, are looking more and more like the prohibitive favorites. Not just to win the NL West, but to challenge for league supremacy and chase down the franchise's first championship in a quarter-century.

This series could be a springboard. As Steve Delbeck of the Los Angeles Times put it prior to Sunday's series-clinching win:

"

Maybe their setbacks Friday brought them together, or maybe Saturday was just one of those crazy games, but their almost inexplicable 17-0 wipeout of the Giants at AT&T Park was easily their most significant victory of the season.

"

The most significant, that is, until this storied, continent-spanning rivalry resumes next week.

Keep your dukes up.