Vitello’s risky bullpen gambit dooms SF Giants in loss to Dodgers

LOS ANGELES — Philip Abner was going right back into the fire.

Abner made the wrong kind of history on Friday night by surrendering four homers in the bottom of the eighth. Max Muncy and Kyle Tucker went back-to-back to start the frame, then Mookie Betts and Will Smith did the same a couple of batters later. Following the effort, manager Tony Vitello said Abner would “be back out there at some point.”

That “some point” arrived less than 24 hours later with the game on the line in front of an announced attendance of 47,410. Vitello’s decision was a true stunner, a true managerial heat check. Barely removed from the worst outing of his career, Vitello called on Abner at the game’s most critical juncture.

Redemption didn’t arrive. No feel-good story, no bounceback. Only agony and the latest bizarre loss in a season full of them, a 10-4 defeat that had the makings of an upset win against back-to-back AL Cy Young Award winner Tarik Subal.

With two on and two out in the fifth, Vitello called Abner’s number for the left-on-left matchup against the Dodgers’ Josue De Paula. Abner’s first pitch, a bounced curveball that catcher Andrew Knizner couldn’t handle, was a sign of what was to come.

Abner walked De Paula on five pitches, loading the bases for switch-hitter Tommy Edman. Edman entered the game with a career .799 OPS against lefties and padded those stats by pulling a single to left that scored Teoscar Hernández easily. Left fielder Turner Hill’s throw home beat Kyle Tucker but was a tad off line and got away from Knizner. De Paula advanced to third, while Edman took second.

Following Edman’s two-run single, Miguel Rojas emerged from the Dodgers’ bench and rapped a single of his own. De Paula strolled home for Los Angeles’ third run of the inning, but a perfect throw by Hill nabbed Edman at the plate to mercifully end the inning — and Abner’s night.

The bottom of the sixth featured a different flavor of agony as reliever Joel Kuhnel allowed three runs (one earned) due to a pair of misplays. Shortstop Christian Koss committed an error when he dropped a throw on a force play from first baseman Brett Harris, and Harris could’ve been charged for an error after failing to corral a playable scoop from Koss that would’ve ended the inning. De Paula made Harris’ gaffe hurt, immediately driving in two more runs with a single.

The margin of defeat doesn’t properly reflect the Giants’ feistiness for the first half of the game. Thanks in large part to Victor Bericoto, San Francisco and Los Angeles entered the bottom of the fifth tied 4-4 as the Giants tagged Skubal for four runs.

Bericoto hit a no-doubt, two-run homer off Skubal on a middle-middle fastball in the third, emphatically throwing his bat before rounding the bases. The Giants scored a run in the fourth when Jonah Cox perfectly executed the squeeze play, then another in the fifth when Bericoto and Jung Hoo Lee hit back-to-back doubles, the latter driving in the former. Then, the bottom of the fifth rolled around and all those good vibes evaporated.