THE San Francisco Giants defeated the Los Angeles Dodgers, 4-0, in game one of the 2021 NL division series at Oracle Park last night. 

Logan Webb, in his first postseason start, pitched 7 2/3 innings, allowing five hits and no walks while striking out ten. Webb, 24, was positively transcendent in this game, evoking memories of Tim Lincecum in the first game of the 2010 division series against Atlanta. He shut out the best lineup in baseball, the top run-scoring team, and he was never in serious trouble. Tyler Rogers and the wunderkind Camilo Doval finished LA off for the final five outs, and they were great, but this game belonged to the Giants' sudden young ace.

Webb's opponent, Walker Buehler, pitched well enough, but once again the Giants deviled him by going deep in the count and hitting the ball where it was pitched. This was illustrated in the first inning when Tommy LaStella started it off by working Buehler for a five-pitch walk. Two batters later, Buehler went 3-0 on Buster Posey, pitching him away. Pitch four was almost perfect, a high fastball on the outside, close enough for strike one, and Buster went with it all the way, the other way. This was no high-and-deep fade down the right-field line-- this was a cannonball that soared over the brick wall, hit a stanchion on the promenade, and caromed onto the Bay. It was explosive, it was Buster's first postseason homer since 2012, and the way Webb was pitching, it carried the night.

As is their wont, the Giants added two more on solo homers. Kris Bryant opened the seventh with a mighty blast to deep-left center on a 3-2 pitch, and that one really seemed to deflate Buehler, who visibly sagged on the mound. Brandon Crawford, who'd belted one to the warning track in the first, just ahead of Buster's blast, took lefthander Alex Vesia way, way deep in the eighth, clearing the fence in deepest center. Crawford, serenaded by chants of "M-V-P!" whenever he did anything, had made a sloppy error in the first that eventually allowed a runner to reach third. But in the fourth, with one on and one out, Giant-killer Justin Turner hit a sharp grounder up the middle destined for center field. Crawford, shifted far to the left, couldn't get it, but he raced toward second anyway. In what looked like perfect choreography, LaStella backhanded the ball, glove-flipped it into the air to Crawford, who snatched it out of the air, tagged second, and made a perfect relay to first. Inning over! Yet another highlight-film double play from the Giants snuffed out one of the Dodgers' few chances to get two men on. They never had another.

Kevin Gausman takes the baton tonight with the NL's only 20-game winner, Julio Urias, opposing. Gabe Kapler was modest with his substitutions last night, using only two. Tonight we'll see Darin Ruf, Donovan Solano, and probably Austin Slater filling out a lineup of seven right-handed batters to face LA's fine young lefthander.