Dodgers beat Giants, 3-2, with Matt Kemp on sidelines

SAN FRANCISCO — Matt Kemp did something Saturday he resisted doing for more than a week: He acknowledged he was hurting his team, took himself out of the lineup and got his ailing left shoulder examined.

Kemp sat out a 3-2 victory over the first-place San Francisco Giants at AT&T; Park that reduced the Dodgers’ deficit in the National League West to 4 1/2 games. He will be sidelined for the series finale Sunday, the offensively slumping Dodgers’ most important game to date, and perhaps even after that.

“I wish this wasn’t going on right now,” Kemp said.

The Dodgers, who have 22 games remaining in the regular season, are only half a game behind the St. Louis Cardinals for the second of two wild-card spots.

“It’s tough any time you lose Matt,” Manager Don Mattingly said. “I talked to him the other day about it. I appreciate him wanting to play and wanting to be tough and go out there. But at some point, you have to be honest and say, ‘I can help the team or I can’t help the team.’ If it’s hurting him to swing the bat, he’s not able to do some things, it doesn’t do us any good for him to be out there. You still have to be able to compete and be productive.”

Kemp was in a sweatshirt along the railing of the Dodgers dugout when Hanley Ramirez doubled in Adrian Gonzalez in the ninth inning to end a 2-2 stalemate, his shoulder still sore from a couple of injections he received earlier in the day.

Based on the results of an MRI exam he underwent Saturday, Kemp was optimistic he would cease being an observer Tuesday for the opening game of a three-game series in Arizona.

The exam revealed bruising and inflammation, which trainer Sue Falsone said was expected. The theory of the team’s medical staff is that Kemp jammed his shoulder when he used his left arm to cover his face as he ran into center field wall in Colorado on Aug. 28.

Kemp also has some minor labrum damage.

“In any baseball shoulder, it’s always a little bit messed up,” Falsone said. “He has a little bit of fraying. We feel like the issue is really coming from the inflammation in the back part of the shoulder.”

To treat the inflammation, Kemp was administered a shot of cortisone.

Kemp, who previously denied being injured, acknowledged the pain in his shoulder affected him at the plate. In the seven games he played after his crash with the wall, he batted .100 (three for 30) with one home run and two runs batted in.

He said his shoulder hurt him every time he swung the bat.

“Especially the ones I swing and miss at,” he said. “That’s when it really hurts. When they’re throwing those changeups, you’re swinging and missing, that’s when it hurts a lot.”

He knew something was wrong when Cameron Maybin robbed him of a home run Wednesday at Dodger Stadium.

“Most of the time I drive those balls pretty far up,” Kemp said. “I just didn’t have that extra oomph on the ball.”

Still, Kemp initially refused to be examined. A contrast MRI exam requires an injection of dye and recovering from that takes at least a couple of days.

But another hitless night Friday changed his mind.

“Most of the time, I’m used to having injuries and finding ways to play and still being successful,” Kemp said. “As you can see, going out there and trying to hit the ball, it’s been pretty hard. I don’t want to hurt my team being out there.”

dylan.hernandez@latimes.com