Giants drama between Gabe Kapler and reliever adds to Dodgers’ joy

The San Francisco Giants’ debt has been paid. After winning 107 games last year and playing a big role in keeping the Los Angeles Dodgers from reaching the World Series thanks to a wire-to-wire exhausting division race, the Giants have embarrassed themselves time and time again in 2022.

From the Giants’ terrible defense at times vs LA, to Cody Bellinger’s go-ahead homer earlier in the year silencing San Fran’s broadcast, to Farhan Zaidi not selling his top assets at the trade deadline, to NBC Sports Bay Area attempting and failing to troll the Dodgers, it’s been quite a ride.

Many Dodgers fans thought the end of the Giants’ misery came last week when LA all but officially eliminated them from the division/playoff race, but we’ve got another moment to make into an NFT and put on the Giants’ Failed 2022 Season Mantle.

On Monday night against the Atlanta Braves, the Giants did the Dodgers a favor by defeating the surging NL East team, but not before some drama ensued on the field between manager Gabe Kapler and reliever Zack Littell.

At 68-73 with the season pretty much over, there are somehow escalating tensions when the stakes couldn’t be lower.

Dodgers fans have more to laugh about at the Giants’ expense in 2022

In the top of the eighth, Kapler made the prudent decision to remove Littell from the game. The right-hander nearly blew the team’s 3-0 lead, allowing two earned runs on three hits and a walk on just 15 pitches. That brought his ERA up to a 5.08 on the season.

But Littell apparently wasn’t ready to be taken out, and he had some words for Kapler after the manager took the ball from him. Dodgers fans surely wish Kapler had reamed Littell out right there on the mound for the whole world to see, but he instead saved it for the dugout, when he took the reliever down toward the clubhouse to settle things.

And look at that stat on the screen! The Giants are 19-26 in one-run games this year! No thanks to Littell, though, who’s been downright bad this year with his previously mentioned 5.08 ERA, 4.65 FIP, 1.38 WHIP and 39 strikeouts in 44.1 innings of work. He’s mostly pitched in meaningless situations, but has been responsible for blowing three games in 2022.

What do you know? Littell was one of the many Giants players in 2021 that performed far beyond their true capabilities, which contributed to the most significant aberration in modern baseball history. The Giants had no business winning 107 games in 2021. Some might say they didn’t have any business dealing with this many problems in 2022, but like we said, Dodgers fans will call it even now.

Even better! This just in as of 3:15 PST:

Like we said, the 2021 Giants were flukiest of all fluky.

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