Giants sweep Dodgers with third one-run victory, 4-3

This time there was no final drama to clutch their guts, no walk offs to break their hearts.

Just a final indignation at the hands of the Giants, the Dodgers falling, 4-3, Sunday to be swept out of San Francisco.

Matt Cain, looking remarkably mortal against the rest of the National League, held what passes as an offense these days for the Dodgers, to one run in his 7 1/3 innings to earn his first victory of the year. The Giants won all three games of the series by a single run.

In five starts against every team that is not the Dodgers this season, Cain owns a 7.85 ERA. In two games against the Dodgers, it’s 0.67.

The evening’s story was fairly familiar. Mark Ellis (quad) missed his eighth consecutive game, though he has yet to be placed on the disabled list. Adrian Gonzalez was scratched from the lineup for the third consecutive game, though he did drive in the Dodgers’ first two runs with a pinch-hit single in the eighth inning.

Too often when the Dodgers did produce baserunners, as is their habit, they stranded them. They were 2 for 12 with runners in scoring position and left nine runners on base.

Left-hander Hyun-Jin Ryu, who had 12 strikeouts in his last outing, wasn’t dominant for the Dodgers, though neither was he exactly a mess.

But he could not get the awkward Hunter Pence out when he needed to, Pence driving in all four of the Giants’ runs.

The Giants scored once in the first on a Pence groundout, once in the third on a Pence double and twice in the fifth on another Pence double.

Ryu fell to 3-2 with the loss, both defeats coming against the Giants. Sunday he went six innings, allowing the four runs on eight hits and two walks. He struck out two.

In his 7 1/3 innings, Cain (1-2) held the Dodgers to a run on five hits and three walks, with four strikeouts. He would have held them scoreless if he’d received better support from the bullpen.

Cain left with one out and a runner on in the eighth. But after left-hander Javier Lopez struck out Andre Ethier, right-hander George Kontos gave up a single to A.J. Ellis and walked – who else? – Juan Uribe to load the bases.

The Giants brought in Jeremy Affeldt to face Gonzalez, but he bounced a two-run single up the middle. After Dee Gordon beat out an infield hit to pull the Dodgers within 4-3, Jean Machi got Jerry Hairston Jr. to bounce out and leave the rally a run short.

Sergio Romo held the Dodgers scoreless in the ninth to pick up his 12th save.