First pitch: Thursday, 3:45 p.m. ET
Line: Los Angeles -120, San Francisco +110, Total: 6

The San Francisco Giants look to make up some ground on the NL West leading Los Angeles Dodgers when they go for a sweep by the bay on Thursday afternoon.

The Dodgers are in the lead in the NL West, but have really had their struggles of late with losses in five of their last seven contests. The offense hasn’t been able to do much in that time, mustering up a mere 2.3 runs per game and have put up just two total runs in the past four. Each of the first two meetings in this three-game set have resulted in them being shut out and they were 0-for-4 with RISP behind six hits in Wednesday’s 4-0 defeat. With two base knocks, 2B Howie Kendrick (.304) continued with his solid campaign and now has a hit in nine of his past 11 performances. The Giants are creeping up on Los Angeles as they ride a current five-game winning streak coming into this battle. They have shut down the opposition’s offenses recently, giving up two or fewer runs in four of the five victories and have scored 7.2 runs per game of their own. They will go for the sweep of the Dodgers after the 4-0 win on Wednesday when they backed the strong outing (7 IP, 0 ER, 3 H, 4 K) by Tim Lincecum with a two-run blast by 1B Buster Posey (.308) who went 3-for-4 in the win. He’s now hit safely for San Francisco in his last eight outings, going 13-for-35 (.371) with three HRs, 10 RBI and six runs. An elite pitching matchup will take place as three-time Cy Young award winner LHP Clayton Kershaw (2-2, 4.24 ERA) goes against last season’s World Series MVP in LHP Madison Bumgarner (4-2, 3.20 ERA) of the host Giants. The road has not been a friendly place for Los Angeles as they are 7-10 away from home and will have a tough task at avoiding the sweep against this San Francisco team which is 13-9 in front of its fans. There have been plenty of meetings between these two clubs recently, and since the start of 2013, the Giants hold a 26-20 edge while being 14-9 at home. This year it has been all San Francisco as it is 6-2 against its rivals and has outscored them 26-22. Trends show that the Dodgers are 47-18 (.723) in day games where Kershaw is starting in his career as the Giants are 32-14 (.696) in May games since the start of last year. The outfield for Los Angeles is not quite as crowded as usual with both OFs Yasiel Puig (Hamstring) and Carl Crawford (Oblique) on the DL while San Francisco has no significant omissions from its lineup.

Nobody in baseball, hitter or pitcher, has been better than Kershaw over the past four seasons as he’s taken three of the last four Cy Young awards and was the recipient of the NL MVP last year. He’s had at least 210 strikeouts in each of the last five years and is on pace to get a career-high in that category as he is mowing down 11.7 batters per nine innings in 2015. His performances this season have not been up to his usual standards as his team has taken the loss in four of his eight outings, but things should begin to turn around as batters are hitting an unsustainable .349 BABIP against him and are going deep (0.88 HR/9) at a rate 0.33 HR/9 more than his career average. He’s already seen this San Francisco group twice on the year, with his team losing both times as he pitched a total of 13 innings with four runs allowed on 10 hits and struck out 17 batters (1 walk). In his career against this division rival, Kershaw has gone 14-6 (16-11) with a 1.52 ERA (0.82 WHIP) and has given up more than three runs when facing them once in those 27 attempts. The only player on the Giants to have sustained success against the lefty is backup 1B Joaquin Arias who is 12-for-37 (.324) with a double and RBI. Other than that, there hasn’t been too much good going on for the San Francisco offense with 1B Brandon Belt (3-for-23, 18 K), OF Hunter Pence (4-for-53, 13 K) and SS Brandon Crawford (1-for-18, 7 K) all doing next to nothing in the matchup. The Dodgers’ relievers have combined to go 8-7 with a phenomenal 2.63 ERA (1.08 WHIP) as they’ve been successful with save attempts in just 8-of-14 chances (57%). The ninth inning could be safe now, though, as Kenley Jansen (0.00 ERA, 1 save) has made his way back from injury and has five strikeouts (0 walks) with no hits in his first two innings of work.

Bumgarner has been stellar in the past two years, getting a sub-3.00 ERA each season with a total of 418 strikeouts. The tall lefty has continued to have success following his amazing playoff performances last year as he walks a career-low 1.4 batters per nine innings and has aided his club in winning in five of his eight outings. This is his third matchup with the Dodgers on the year and he has been opposing Kershaw each time, out-dueling him in both the contests as he totaled 14.1 IP, allowing three runs on 11 hits in that time with 15 strikeouts (3 walks). He’s met this club 18 times in his career, going 12-5 (13-5 team record) with a 2.48 ERA (0.98 WHIP) and has had a quality start in 12 of those outings. There are certainly more players on Los Angeles who have performed poorly against Bumgarner than the ones that have had success, but 3B Juan Uribe (11-for-36, 1 HR, 3 RBI) has done well while the 1B Adrian Gonzalez, SS Jimmy Rollins and OF Andre Ethier have combined to go 11-for-83 (.133) with 23 strikeouts. The San Francisco ‘pen has been great, going 7-4 with a 2.91 ERA (1.24 WHIP) and have saved 11-of-13 games (85%). Santiago Casilla (1.65 ERA, 10 saves) has not allowed a run since April 25th (7.2 IP) while posting an 8:2 K/BB ratio in that period.