LOS ANGELES — Do you rip a bandage off fast or peel it away slowly? After the past two nights, the San Diego Padres can tell you what both feel like.
A two-pitch sequence in the seventh inning on Friday night turned the game on its head and gave the Dodgers their second consecutive soul-crushing comeback win against the Padres, a 4-3 victory that is their fourth in the past seven days against the closest thing to opposition they have in the National League West.
“For us, we’re just stacking wins. Certainly they’re going through it right now,” Dodgers manager Dave Roberts said of a Padres team that has lost seven in a row, slipped below .500 and is 14 games short of the Dodgers’ growing stack of wins.
“Last night, the way we came back and won, tonight, the way we came back and won – it certainly takes the wind out of your sail.”
The Dodgers’ sails were becalmed for six innings by Padres starter Michael King, leaving them trailing 3-0 in the seventh. The Dodgers put the first two runners on base to start the seventh inning and chase King from the game. The left-handed flamethrower in their bullpen, Adrian Morejon, came in and got Kyle Tucker to bounce a potential double-play grounder to second baseman Jake Cronenworth.
But Cronenworth booted it, loading the bases with no outs. Teoscar Hernandez clubbed the next pitch from Morejon, a slider down but out over the plate, 419 feet to center field for a grand slam and a 4-3 lead.
Thursday night’s turnaround was water torture by comparison. The Dodgers came back from a 6-0 deficit after two innings to win that game, 12-7.
“Just knowing him, every pitch is hard. I was looking for the hardest one, the fastball, middle-in. But just reacted to that one in the middle of the plate,” Hernandez said.
Hernandez and the stadium reacted in pure joy, Hernandez’s bat flip punctuating it. But the night came with some cause for concern.
After pulling Ohtani as a pitcher after six innings, Roberts pinch-hit for him later in that seventh inning. Ohtani said he felt some discomfort in his right biceps while batting in the bottom of the sixth.
“I was a little concerned with my biceps with the last at-bat that I took,” Ohtani said through his interpreter.
“It’s the same location that I felt a couple months ago. It went away relatively quickly, so I expect that to happen again.”
Ohtani said it only affected him while hitting and not during his six innings and 110 pitches on the mound – the most he has thrown in a game since an 111-pitch, complete-game shutout for the Angels in July 2023.
Ohtani’s admission that he felt an issue with his biceps earlier this season was news to Roberts. He said the problem was “so benign that I didn’t hear about it until tonight. … It’s the first I heard of it, so it didn’t take him out of playing.”
It will this time. Roberts said Ohtani will not be in the lineup at DH on Saturday.
“We’ll give him a day to fully recover, treat it up and then at that point in time we’ll just go from there,” Roberts said.
“He’s dealt with it before. He’s a quick healer and finds a way to get back. But I do think that for us to read and react and hear what his body is telling him is really important, given the toll it takes on his body to be a two-way player.”
The Dodgers took the same approach in June when Ohtani had pain in his left knee. He missed just one game that time. But this latest sign that Ohtani the unicorn is indeed human could prompt the Dodgers to have Ohtani skip his final pitching start before the All-Star break, which is currently scheduled for next Friday.
“I think it should be on the table,” Roberts said. “Obviously we’re not going to make that decision right now. But anything should be on the table, certainly.”
King outpitched Ohtani on Friday night, to get the Padres their lead.
The right-hander retired the first 11 Dodgers in order. Freddie Freeman’s ground ball found its way through the right side of the infield for a two-out single in the fourth inning.
Ohtani’s night didn’t start as smoothly. He threw six consecutive balls to start the game and walked the first two batters he faced. The Padres cashed one of those in on an RBI single by Gavin Sheets.
Ohtani’s recent pitching starts have been marred by big innings – a three-run seventh in Pittsburgh, a four-run fifth against the Tampa Bay Rays and a three-run second in Minnesota.
He avoided that this time out but the Padres stung him with single runs in the first, fourth (a solo home run by Jackson Merrill) and sixth (three consecutive two-out hits, including an RBI double by Xander Bogaerts).
“I think I did the bare minimum,” Ohtani said. “To get through six, to give the team the chance to win, keep the game in check. But there were some good and some bad.”
After posting a 0.74 ERA in his first 10 pitching starts this season, Ohtani has given up 14 runs (12 earned) in 24⅔ innings over his past four – a 4.38 ERA. There was no visible friction between the two Friday, but Dalton Rushing has been Ohtani’s catcher for all four of those starts.
“I thought we were on the same page a lot tonight, and obviously that, once again, is a boost of confidence moving forward,” said Rushing, who acknowledged that Ohtani called “a majority” of his own pitches. “He’s not an easy guy to call for, but also he is who he is for a reason. So, yeah, I’m glad we were on the same page for most of the night. Looking forward to his next one.”
Ohtani did strike out nine and avoid that multi-run damage, but he had to throw the aforementioned 110 pitches.
By contrast, King got through six innings on just 68 pitches, throwing more than 13 pitches in an inning just once in that time.
That came in the sixth when the Dodgers put two runners on with two outs. Freeman grounded out to end that inning. When they put two on to start the seventh, the stage was set for Hernandez’s heroics.
“He was executing really good pitches. Everybody knows he’s a good pitcher,” Hernandez said of King. “He didn’t leave anything in the middle of the plate, so we couldn’t do damage. But at the end, we had some good at-bats, we put some guys on. And the big swing came.”