Friday night showed why the Padres were fine with Yu Darvish missing so much of the season.
Friday night exemplified the Padres’ style of play.
Friday night went better for the Padres than when they played the Dodgers last week in Los Angeles.
Friday night left the teams tied atop the National League West after the Padres’ 2-1 victory at Petco Park.
The win was built by small ball, enabled by a 39-year-old pitcher with a balky elbow and saved by an excellent defensive play by one of the Padres’ two closers and a literal save by the other.
“It’s how we play,” Padres manager Mike Shildt said. “We can beat the other team in a lot of different ways. Tonight, it was more of an old-fashioned recipe. Starter going six innings. Darvish was fantastic. Some productive outs, some good situational hitting. … Good defense. Bullpen bought it home. It was a really good baseball game. We played a very good baseball game tonight.”
The Padres scored their two runs in the fourth inning on a walk, a sacrifice bunt, two singles, a runner going first to third and a sacrifice fly.
Darvish allowed the Dodgers one hit — a solo home run — over six innings in his ninth start of the season. It was with an eye toward games like Friday at the end of the season that the Padres cautiously brought Darvish back after an elbow issue popped up in spring training.
Shildt went to his bullpen after the sixth.
Jason Adam worked a 1-2-3 seventh inning before Mason Miller survived the eighth by saving himself from himself.
Miller began the inning by walking Michael Conforto, got an out and then walked Alex Freeland. With Shohei Ohtani on deck and Adrian Morejón warming in the bullpen, pinch-hitter Dalton Rushing hit a grounder to first baseman Luis Arraez that began a double play — after a fantastic dig by Miller and a replay review.
On the play, shortstop Xander Bogaerts bounced the throw to first base, but Miller backhanded the ball just an instant before Kennedy’s foot touched the bag. But it took an umpire in New York overturning Chris Guccione’s call to make it so.
“It happened so fast, I felt like I felt my glove hand have the ball before I felt the foot on the base,” Miller said. “But you saw how close it was. Bang, bang.”
Robert Suarez allowed two singles in the ninth before striking out Teoscar Hernandez to end the game with runners at the corners and earn his MLB-leading 34th save.
“Unfortunately, we couldn’t figure out Darvish,” Dodgers manager Dave Roberts said. “They went to the ‘pen and we really threatened a couple times late but just couldn’t get that big hit.”
Friday was the Padres’ third victory in 11 games against the Dodgers this season. And it made both teams 73-56.
It was the fifth game in the season series decided by one run. Those slim margins include two of the Dodgers’ victories in their three-game sweep of the Padres last weekend in Los Angeles.
“It was huge,” Fernando Tatis Jr. said. “Everybody knew what happened last weekend, so trying to get the first one, and now we’re aiming for the last two.”
The Dodgers took a 1-0 lead in a way that is typical for them — a home run. Freeland’s first major league homer was the Dodgers’ 192nd of the season, second-most in the major leagues. They entered the game having scored 45% of their runs from homers.
It was also the Dodgers’ 13th home run in the 11 games they have played against the Padres this season. The Padres have six home runs in the 11 games, rank 29th in homers and have gotten an MLB-low 30% of their runs from homers.
Their typical mode of scoring can involve a buildup.
The Padres got their first batter on base in the second, third and fourth innings against Dodgers starter Blake Snell.
The first time was negated by a double play, the second by a dumb play. The third time led to the Padres taking a lead.
Tatis began the fourth inning by drawing a walk and moved to second on Arraez’s sacrifice bunt before Manny Machado’s single tied the game by driving in Tatis.
Machado got to third on Ryan O’Hearn’s single and scored on Bogaerts’ fly ball to center field.
Before that, it had been a frustrating night.
O’Hearn’s single to start the second was erased by Bogaerts grounding into a double play.
In the third, Laureano singled and went to second on Jake Cronenworth’s sacrifice bunt. The inning ended when Freddy Fermin struck out and pretty much everyone in the ballpark except first base umpire Guccione thought Tatis had struck out as well.
After Tatis checked his swing, Laureano stopped running on his way to third, apparently thinking Tatis had swung and missed. Dodgers catcher Will Smith at first grabbed the ball, a curve that had bounced, to tag out Tatis. Then, Smith looked down to Guccione, who had signaled that Tatis had not swung, before seeing Laureano on the basepaths and throwing to third baseman Buddy Kennedy.
Snell would go seven innings, allowing six hits and walking two along the way.
The Padres had last faced Snell on Saturday, when he held them scoreless over six innings despite walking two and allowing five hits in what ended up a 6-0 Dodgers victory.
Their aggressiveness and Smith’s execution helped Snell that night, as four of the Padres’ first five batters got hits and Smith threw three of them out as they attempted to steal second base.
The Padres were also down 3-0 after the first inning in that game, which was started by Dylan Cease.
Darvish started the next day and allowed four runs in the first inning of a game the Padres lost 5-4.
That game was decided by Mookie Betts’ home run off Suarez in the eighth inning after the Padres tied the game in the seventh.
Freddie Freeman’s three-run homer and a solo homer by Pages did the damage against Darvish that day.
On Friday, Darvish hit the batter immediately after Freeland’s homer and then retired nine straight before walking Shohei Ohtani with one out in the sixth. Darvish ended that inning and his night by getting Betts to hit a grounder to third base, which Machado fielded and threw to second base to start a double play.
“He was unebelievable,” Machado said. “… He set the tone for us. And on the offensive side, we knew what we had to do. We knew what we had to do. We had a challenge (against Snell). We had to get something going. We attacked when we needed to. We did the little things.”
Originally Published:
Source link
