LOS ANGELES — This weekend at Dodger Stadium it is NL West Thunderdome – one first-place team enters, one first-place team leaves.
But for now there are two.
With six strong innings from Clayton Kershaw and three innings of nail-biting relief, the Dodgers ended a four-game losing streak and regained a share of first place in the National League West with a 3-2 victory over the San Diego Padres on Friday night.
The Dodgers landed the first blow in the six-games-in-10-days battle in a phone booth between the division rivals.
Kershaw made his only mistake of the night when he left a curveball to Ramon Laureano over the plate in the second inning. Laureano golfed it down the left field line, where it clipped off the outside of the foul pole for a solo home run.
Kershaw walked the next batter, Jose Iglesias, on seven pitches. But he retired the next 10 Padres in order.
By the time he gave up a second hit (a single to Freddy Fermin in the sixth inning) the Dodgers had given him the lead.
Michael Conforto and Alex Freeland led off the third inning with back-to-back singles. Miguel Rojas squared around to bunt them over but popped it up. Manny Machado came charging in from third base and dove for the soft pop. It glanced off his glove and caromed into foul territory. Everyone was safe and the Dodgers had the bases loaded with no outs.
They used two of those outs to score runs – one on a bases-loaded force out by Shohei Ohtani, another on a sacrifice fly by Mookie Betts. Ohtani was caught stealing to end the inning.
Kershaw nursed the one-run lead through six innings. And that’s all he was asked to do. Dodgers manager Dave Roberts pulled him after the sixth inning despite Kershaw having thrown just 76 pitches and allowing only those two hits.
Ben Casparius was first up and survived a two-out double by Jackson Merrill to put up a scoreless seventh inning.
Teoscar Hernandez did the relief crew a favor when he hit a solo home run in the bottom of the seventh. But the Dodgers wasted an opportunity to do more, stranding two runners after back-to-back one-out walks.
Alex Vesia gave it back in the top of the eighth by grazing two Padres batters with pitches and walking Fernando Tatis Jr. to load the bases with one out. Luis Arraez drove in a run with a sacrifice fly, but Blake Treinen threw one pitch and got Manny Machado to pop out, stranding the tying and go-ahead runs.
Necessity being the mother of desperation as well, Roberts handed the one-run lead to Alexis Diaz in the ninth. The former All-Star closer turned reclamation project sandwiched two strikeouts around a single by Merrill then Roberts brought in rookie left-hander Jack Dreyer to face pinch-hitter Ryan O-Hearn with the tying run on base.
He got O’Hearn to fly out for the first save by a Dodgers reliever since Aug. 3. The Dodgers’ last four saves have come from four different pitchers (Casparius, Vesia, Wrobleski and Dreyer).
More to come on this story.