SAN DIEGO — The Dodgers’ offense has taken on the characteristics of a light bulb, flickering on and off as it is about to expire. It went dark again Friday night.
The Dodgers were held to three hits by Yu Darvish and the San Diego Padres’ bullpen and the Padres took a 2-1 victory in the opener of this weekend’s NL West skirmish.
The win pulls the Padres and Dodgers into a tie atop the division with just two games left in the regular-season series. And it highlights a familiar failing of the Dodgers’ recently – they are just 5-11 in their past 16 one-run decisions.
Darvish retired the first seven Dodgers in order before hanging a 2-and-1 sweeper to rookie Alex Freeland in the third inning. Freeland gladly accepted the gift, ripping it into the right field seats for his first major-league home run – and the Dodgers’ only hit off Darvish..
The offense flickered out after that. Darvish hit Buddy Kennedy with a pitch but retired the next nine Dodgers in order. He walked Shohei Ohtani with one out in the sixth, but Mookie Betts promptly grounded into a double play.
Darvish used eight different pitches by Statcast reckoning – a cutter, a sinker, a slider, a sweeper, a changeup, a splitter, a four-seam fastball and a curveball he soft-tossed as low as 68.5 mph. The Dodgers swung and missed just four times at his 74 pitches but hit very little with authority.
Dodgers starter Blake Snell wasn’t as diversified as Darvish. But it was an odd sequence at the end of the third inning that might have been his biggest problem.
Ramon Laureano led off the third inning with a single and moved to second on a sacrifice bunt. Snell struck out Freddy Fermin for the second out of the inning and got to 2-and-2 on Fernando Tatis Jr. when Tatis checked his swing at a curveball.
While Snell and catcher Will Smith appealed to the first-base umpire, Laureano wandered away from second base, looking back over his shoulder for the call from first-base umpire Chris Guccione. When Guccione spread his arms wide, signalling Tatis had not swung – and had not struck out – Laureano was flat-footed in no-man’s land. Smith threw to Buddy Kennedy at third base. Kennedy tagged Laureano out to end the inning.
That gave Tatis a fresh slate, leading off the fifth inning. He nearly squandered it, falling behind 0-and-2 but worked a walk, setting the Padres’ winning rally in motion.
Luis Arraez bunted him to second and Manny Machado sliced a single into right-center to score Tatis. Another single by Ryan O’Hearn sent Machado to third and Xander Bogaerts’ sacrifice fly brought Machado in with the go-ahead run.
Darvish handed that 2-1 lead to the Padres’ trade deadline-fortified bullpen for the final three innings.
Jason Adam retired the side in order in the seventh. Mason Miller brought his high-octane fastball in for the eighth and missed the mark often enough (while topping out at 102.6 mph) to walk two of the first three batters he faced.
Dalton Rushing came off the bench to pinch-hit and bounced a ground ball to Arraez at first. He threw to shortstop Bogaerts, whose throw to Miller covering first, bounced in the dirt. Miller scooped it just as Rushing arrived. Guccione’s safe call was overturned by a replay review, ending the inning.
Mookie Betts singled with one out in the ninth and Freddie Freeman did the same with two outs, putting runners at the corners. Padres closer Robert Suarez struck out Teoscar Hernandez to end the game.
More to come on this story.