LOS ANGELES -- Trevor McDonald didn’t draw the easiest assignment in his first big league start, but the 24-year-old rookie looked up to the task on Sunday afternoon.

McDonald fired six-plus innings of one-run ball in his third career Major League appearance, and the Giants rallied to score three runs in the eighth inning to beat the Dodgers, 3-1 , and avoid a four-game sweep at Dodger Stadium.

With the win, the Giants (77-79) pulled within three games of the Mets (80-76) for the third and final National League Wild Card spot with six games left to play. (New York holds the tiebreaker, so the deficit is technically four games.)

McDonald matched Dodgers right-hander Emmet Sheehan with six scoreless innings out of the gate, but he couldn’t get out of the seventh after he issued a le

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