Max Scherzer and the Dodgers Finally Close Things Out

SAN FRANCISCO — Three hours and 19 minutes into the best game in recent memory, a heavyweight bout in which both teams probably deserved the championship belt, a winner-take-all affair that lived up to the hype heaped upon it for the past two days, the visiting bullpen door at Oracle Park slammed open.

Dodgers first baseman Matt Beaty, who had grounded into the final out of the top of the ninth inning, knelt in the dirt, his headfirst slide barely finished. The Giants defenders jogged into their dugout. The Dodgers defenders gathered their gloves in theirs.

Max Scherzer waited for none of them. He rocketed through the outfield and onto the pitcher’s mound, a place he had spent some 500 hours,…