LOS ANGELES -- Multiple times this weekend, Gabe Kapler mentioned how athletic he thinks Yermin Mercedes is. On Sunday morning, he spoke at length about the traits that might not stick out to those not watching close. The hand-eye coordination, the twitchiness, the explosiveness.
"I don't have his vertical leap," Kapler said. "But those are things that play into athleticism. Just strong, fast movements are athleticism, and he's got those."
Mercedes showed off a lot of those traits when he dug a Clayton Kershaw curve out of the dirt for a double in his first at-bat, and again when he roped a fastball into left for another double. Kapler is proud of how hard Mercedes has worked to make himself a useful utility player for the Giants, and he's getting a lot of time right now.
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SIGN UP HERE But Mercedes still is someone who spent just about his entire minor league career as a catcher, might be best-suited to DH right now, but is playing left field regularly for a team competing for a playoff spot. He is one of many Giants who is miscast defensively as the team pushes for more dangerous bats in the lineup, and often it has burned them.
Mercedes took a bad route on a ball in the seventh inning, allowing Freddie Freeman a surprise double. The Dodgers led 7-4 by the end of the inning, having tacked on three runs, and they went on to win by that score, locking up the first four-game sweep on either side of this rivalry since 1995.
After the loss, Kapler revealed that Mike Yastrzemski was unavailable with calf soreness, which left the Giants short of options when Mercedes' spot came up in the fifth. They saved their available lefty outfielders -- Joc Pederson and LaMonte Wade Jr. -- for later spots, but before they got there, the Dodgers had taken advantage of the defensive mistake.
In isolation it's understandable, given what was later revealed about Yastrzemski's status. But that play wasn't just one mistake, it fit in perfectly with the last three months, including this entire series, when the Giants always appeared to be a step slow when compared to a Dodgers team that's running away with the NL West.
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"Not good enough. Really frustrating," Kapler said. "A level of play that's just not going to be acceptable for us, there's just no other way to classify it. It was just not good enough."
Kapler tends to do a great job of keeping his emotions in check during and after games, but the frustration and anger were visible on his face as he spoke to reporters a half-hour after the loss. He was delayed by about 20 minutes because he held individual meetings with some players, but there aren't a lot of obvious improvements that can come from those conversations.
A year after winning 107 games, the Giants too often look old and slow. They are one of the most disappointing defensive groups in franchise history, and they're having a hell of a time getting through the late innings. Tyler Rogers gave up most of the damage on Sunday, but earlier in this series it was Jarlin Garcia allowing a three-run shot to Mookie Betts and then Sam Long serving up a grand slam to Cody Bellinger. The issues over four games were widespread.
"This is what happens when you lose four, you come to Dodger Stadium and you get swept -- you really just get your ass kicked," Kapler said. "It's something that I've said in the past but it's perfectly appropriate and applicable here, which is (we're) not making enough pitches, not making enough plays, not getting enough big hits and the other team doing more of that than you did. Was the defense not at our best at times? Sure.
"But there were other things that you could easily point to and micro-moments where we just didn't get the job done. We just have to own that."
If you watched the 36 innings of baseball this week, you might have come away with the feeling that the Giants should sell before the Aug. 2 deadline. But as they prepared to head off for Phoenix, the Giants were just two games out of the third and final Wild Card spot. One of the teams ahead of them, the Philadelphia Phillies, just got swept by the lowly Chicago Cubs.
The Dodgers are a superpower. The New York Mets and Atlanta Braves are very strong, too, and the San Diego Padres could be a huge threat if they get Fernando Tatis Jr. back soon and swing their usual deadline moves. But with the deadline approaching, the Giants tried to take an optimistic approach.
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Even with the baseball they played this week, they're not feeling pressure to try and swing team executives' minds one way or the other.
"I think there's just pressure to perform just because of where we're at," Cobb said. "We're really in a fight with three teams right now to just try to get that Wild Card spot and I think that could make you press a little bit, but I don't think any of our mindsets are on buying or selling or anything like that. You just want to win ballgames to get that playoff spot and I think there's enough there for us to think about. It's a good thing to have that motivation."
