Dodger Stadium becomes Candlestick South as Giants reclaim the edge in Game 3 of their NL Division Series

Brandon Crawford’s earliest memories of attending Giants games with his family are sweetened with the wonder of youth.

He only remembers the good stuff. There were frozen chocolate malts to inhale till your head ached. There were concrete aisles and stairs to scramble up and down. There was Royce Clayton, who dived in the infield dirt and ranged into the outfield grass and defined what it meant to play shortstop for an observer learning the position in T-ball. There was the indescribable sense of being surrounded by thousands of people at Candlestick Park, all wearing the same colors you’re wearing, not there for the amenities but for the bonhomie, all pulling for the same cause. When you are 5 years old, your world hasn’t been hemmed in by cynicism or suspicion. Everyone can be on your side.

“I mean, I assume that you’re asking me because of how windy it was, trash flying around and stuff like that — and I do remember that,” Crawford said when asked after a wind-whipped Game 3 of the NLDS if he now had an understanding of what it would have been like to play at Candlestick. “But it’s not what I remember the most. I just remember going to Giants games and having fun watching baseball. I think the adults probably remember the cold wind, the trash flying around, stuff like that. I just thought it was cool that I was at a baseball game.”

On Monday night, the Giants and Crawford, a fan from birth who became their all-time greatest shortstop, played their first-ever postseason game at Dodger Stadium. And the baseball gods had the ultimate sense of humor. They saw fit to transform the joint into Candlestick Park.

Winds gusted up to 50 mph. Hot dog wrappers did aerial acrobatics. A fine grit in the breeze made hitters back out of the box and rub their eyes. At one point, Dodgers right-hander Max Scherzer had a Stu Miller moment (if you’re a generation removed, Google it) and was nearly blown off the mound. There were fly balls that blew foul, fly balls that got knocked down and fly balls that wobbled in the wind. Even the pregame pyrotechnics that accompanied the national anthem, which were shot off beyond the center-field fence, appeared to shower sparks over second base.

No less an authority than Hall of Fame broadcaster Jaime Jarrín, who began calling Dodgers games in 1959, said he had never witnessed windy conditions at Dodger Stadium that approached what the Dodgers and Giants played through Monday night. It was as if the breeze wrapped around Candlestick Point and whooshed straight across the state and funneled all the way down south into Chavez Ravine.

“Obviously, I was never on the field playing a game at Candlestick,” Crawford said. “So I’d imagine this is what it was like.”

But the wind could not knock down everything Monday night. It did not prevent Evan Longoria’s solo home run from settling into the left-field pavilion in the fifth inning. And it had little impact on what should’ve been a game-tying single from the Dodgers’ Mookie Betts in the seventh.

What the wind couldn’t contain, Crawford did. He timed his jump and made a leaping grab to strand two runners and end the inning. His game-saving defensive play was a gilded thread in a tapestry of contributions that resulted in a 1-0 victory that chewed cuticles but established a massive 2-1 edge for the Giants in this best-of-5 NL Division Series.

Air Crawford 😱 pic.twitter.com/gjpVh5HJ0D

— SF Giants on NBCS (@NBCSGiants) October 12, 2021

The Dodgers had won 15 consecutive home games. They had won all 12 games in which Scherzer had taken the mound for them. It required an almost perfectly choreographed effort for the Giants to break those streaks. And step after precarious step, that’s precisely what they did.

The Dodgers were shut out just five times in the regular season. The Giants have shut them out in two of three games in this novel and epic postseason series.

And they accomplished it Monday night using a script that was hardly tried or true. It was just the sixth time in 64 seasons in San Francisco-era history that the Giants shut out an opponent when their starting pitcher didn’t complete five innings. They also did it last month in Alex Wood’s three-inning start against the Atlanta Braves. Prior to that, they hadn’t had a game like that since 2002, when Jason Schmidt left a start with a shoulder injury in the first inning and a bullpen anchored by Ryan Jensen heroically held the Reds without a run the rest of the way.

All that to say the Giants took an unconventional approach Monday night, yet it made so much conventional sense every step of the way.

Now they’ll attempt to clinch the series in Game 4 behind right-hander Anthony DeSclafani on Tuesday at Dodger Stadium. There’s a high likelihood that Los Angeles manager Dave Roberts, in a bid to extend his team’s season following its 106-win second-place finish in the NL West, will throw Walker Buehler on three days’ rest in Game 4 in the hopes of handing the ball to left-hander Julio Urías in what would be a decisive Game 5 on Thursday in San Francisco. If it gets that far, the Giants would be equally confident sending Logan Webb to the mound.

The salient point is that the onus is back on the Dodgers. And that’s because the Giants executed their plan to near perfection to win Game 3.

Left-hander Alex Wood slinked his way through the Dodgers’ all-right-handed lineup two times and allowed just a pair of hits, both singles leading off innings by Albert Pujols. After Wood had finished with his prescribed 18 batters, he slapped a glove to his thigh as Giants manager Gabe Kapler approached to replace him with two outs in the fifth inning.

Knuckle-scraping right-hander Tyler Rogers, the polar opposite to Wood’s left-handed funk, entered far earlier than customary, and it was his task to take down the top of the Dodgers lineup in its third pass. He did. He retired Betts in the fifth, quelled the side in the sixth and recorded the first out in the seventh.

But then pinch hitter Steven Souza Jr. hit a one-out single. And so did No. 8 hitter Will Smith. Austin Barnes, who already owned one game-changing home run against Rogers this season, was announced as the pinch hitter. Kapler strode to the mound to make a pitching change.

In their blueprint for this game, they had reached the gray area. Barnes was right-handed but had no discernible split. Betts and Trea Turner, two right-handed hitters, awaited.

Kapler checked with plate umpire Ted Barrett to ensure Barnes had been announced. Then he pointed an arm to the bullpen. His left arm.

Kapler set aside platoon advantage and instead put his stock in his most trusted personnel. He went to left-hander Jake McGee, the closer for most of the season who missed the latter half of September because of a sore oblique. It was the dodgy area of the game where, even if everything had gone to plan, the Giants would have to make an exceptional pitch or an exceptional play. That’s what’s required when you’re trying to beat one of the greatest assemblages of talent in major-league history.

“Yeah, that’s right, that was the question, and I can’t swear it was an easy one,” said Kapler of summoning McGee over right-hander Dominic Leone. “What can I say? In those situations, you’re looking for swing-and-miss, right? You don’t want a ball to sneak through the infield.”

There is nothing sneaky about the Dodgers’ ability to change the game with one swing. After Barnes struck out, Betts hit a line drive at 100.4 mph off the bat that had an expected average of .890. And Crawford climbed an invisible step stool to catch it.

“There’s not a whole lot of time for anything, really, to go through my head,” Crawford said. “Just catch the ball. That’s all I’m thinking. I think it had a little bit of topspin on it, fortunately, and it was right over my head, so I was able to just jump and hope that it goes in my glove.”

He saved the lead. He saved McGee. He saved his manager’s backside.

“That’s what happens when two teams go at it,” Kapler said. “You need some great plays.”

Crawford has done this before. In the 2014 NL wild-card game at Pittsburgh, the black-shirted Pirates fans were as vocal and spirited as any road crowd the Giants had come across in their postseason experience. And Crawford’s grand slam turned the frenzied ballpark into a shushed memorial service with one swing. A fan base felt the lights go out on a season.

It wasn’t altogether different when Crawford leapt to prevent Betts from tying the game.

“I didn’t notice it was as extreme as Pittsburgh, but he’s one of their best players and he hits a line drive and it looks like it’s gonna be a game-tying base hit,” Crawford said. “So yeah, it was pretty loud, and … I caught it. So it wasn’t loud anymore.”

Brandon Crawford as kid at Candlestick. pic.twitter.com/loxWAwPH7f

— Batting Stance Guy (@BattingStanceG) October 6, 2016

The Giants still had six more outs to record. They had used their two primary regular-season closers, and it’s an astounding credit to rookie Camilo Doval that the rest of the way involved so little introspection. There’s little doubt where Doval stands in the bullpen pecking order after the Giants pushed him for a two-inning save. He retired all six batters he faced, but not without some atmospheric aid. In the ninth inning, Chris Taylor hit a deep drive that died at the warning track. Then, with two outs, pinch hitter Gavin Lux sent one screaming toward the left-field pavilion. The contact was 106.9 mph off the bat, with another hit percentage of .890.

Did the Giants fear the worst off the bat?

“I think both of us did,” said Longoria, as he was seated next to Crawford in the postgame interview room.

“We both did,” Crawford said.

“My stomach pretty much sank when he hit it,” Longoria said. “I couldn’t believe that it didn’t (go out), but I guess, just our night tonight.”

Giants center fielder Steven Duggar, who played the wind brilliantly all night, raced to the center-field wall and the throaty Dodgers fans let out their loudest reaction of the night. But then an invisible force held it up and Duggar made the catch with ease.

And the Giants, playing for their postseason lives on the road, never felt more at home.

(Photo of Brandon Crawford and Donovan Solano: Gary A. Vasquez / USA Today)