Dodgers played mind games with Giants by using Phil Bickford against them

Remember when the Los Angeles Dodgers were struggling? Yup, good times. Not anymore!

The reigning World Series champions have won 12 of their last 14, including seven in a row in series sweeps against the Arizona Diamondbacks and San Francisco Giants.

LA has leapfrogged the Giants in the NL West standings and now sit just one game behind the San Diego Padres.

Even better? They played mind games with San Fran over the weekend in the three-game sweep, which featured the Dodgers out-scoring their division rivals 19-9.

How so? Two weeks ago, Los Angeles picked up former Giants top prospect Phil Bickford off waivers in an effort to help out their ailing pitching staff.

His first appearance of the year with the team? Sunday in a blowout win over the squad that drafted him.

The Dodgers used a former Giants top prospect against them on Sunday.

Even better? That was Bickford’s first scoreless outing of his career. He was brought in to put out a fire in the eighth inning after Edwin Uceta ran into some trouble by loading the bases and surrendering three earned runs.

With runners on second and third and one out, Bickford induced a groundout, hit a batter, and struck out another to end the inning. 10 pitches. Giants rally over.

San Fran traded Bickford, the former 18th overall pick in the 2015 MLB Draft, back in 2016, only to watch their selection spiral over the next few years. He appeared in two games for the Milwaukee Brewers across the last two seasons, and was DFA’ed a few weeks ago. Then the Dodgers swooped in, stashed him at Triple-A, and called him up specifically for Sunday’s game.

This whole scenario took quite the turn. The Giants were one of the hottest teams in baseball coming into this weekend series, winning 10 of their last 13 against the Padres, Rangers, Pirates and Reds. Then the Dodgers completely deflated them with stellar starting pitching and an offensive barrage…and then played mind games by using one of their former top draft picks against them in a blowout loss.

Between that and Trevor Bauer endlessly trolling the Giants during his Friday night start, they have a lot of recovering to do before coming back to LA for a four-game set this Thursday.

Dodgers: Trevor Bauer trolled Giants over and over again during dominant win

Los Angeles Dodgers right-hander Trevor Bauer couldn't stop trolling the Giants during his dominant outing on Friday night.