SAN DIEGO - Just when things started to look like the San Diego Padres found a resurgence after winning four in-a-row against two of the best teams in the league, they ran into a Mack truck-like force called the Los Angeles Dodgers.
On Saturday in front of Petco Park's 34th sell-out of the season (45,159), the Padres found themselves in an ugly one-sided shellacking, losing 15-3.
Just one day ago, the Padres felt like they found their groove, knocking off the Dodgers in the opening match of the weekend series. Fast forward to now, it is striking how even these two rosters are at the halfway point of the season.
Despite the performance displayed tonight, it was just one game; they will have a chance to wipe this one from their memory as soon as tomorrow. Either way they'll have to play them again in five days but this time up in Chávez Ravine for a four game bout.
Before the game, the Padres had left-hander Kyle Hart start the game instead of Randy Vásquez to face a lefty dominant Dodgers lineup with right-hander Yoshinobu Yamamoto on the mound.
Hart started the opening frame by setting down the top part of the Dodgers lineup in eight pitches. He pitched the second inning but didn't submit similar results, giving up a run, two hits and a walk on 28 pitches.
Max Muncy connected on a splitter in the middle of the zone to right field, and courtesy of a missed Fernando Tatis Jr. sliding grab, stretched around the bases for a triple. Three pitches later, Tommy Edman hit an RBI double over the head of Jackson Merrill to make 1-0.
Vásquez entered the game at the start of the third and threw a decent three scoreless innings before his implosion.
Gavin Sheets, who only had one hit in his career against Yamamoto, tied the game during the fifth with a first pitch four-seam fastball right down broadway for a lead-off home run to center field.
Los Angeles quickly answered with an impressive nine run top half of the sixth inning, including three home runs (two back-to-back by Kyle Tucker and Dalton Rushing), five extra base hits, two walks and field error by Will Wagner. The inning also included the first cycle of the season for the Dodger, which is now the 10th time a ball club has done so.
The inning started with a double by Freddie Freeman and scored on an error by Wagner, Edman tripled to score Muncy. Tucker and Rushing combined forced Vásquez to throw 15 pitches, ending in back-to-back home runs to make it 6-1. Vásquez would end his night with a single and a walk to Alex Freeland and Shohei Ohtani, setting up Ron Marinaccio with two inherited runners.
He would start his outing by giving up a walk to Andy Pages and an RBI ground to Freeman to extend the deficit to 7-1. Three pitches later, Mookie Betts would send a sweeper to 402 ft to center field for a three-run blast, increasing the score to 10-1. San Diego's long lasting nightmare ended on a fly out by Max Muncy.
"He was cruising there for three innings and the that fourth inning was pitching well and you know, made unfortunate error," Padres manager Craig Stammen said. "After that things kind of unraveling for him. You know, trying to sneak him through another inning (to) save our bullpen and just weren't able to do that tonight."
Stammen was close to putting Yuki Matsui in against Tucker with a runner on third but decided to Vásquez to help the bullpen before the game got out of hand.
Vásquez was charged with five earned runs and the other four split with Marinaccio were ruled unearned. The 27-year-old is 0-3 with a 6.00 ERA in his career against the Dodgers.
The Padres are now 9-7 in his last 16 starts on the bump. Part of the reason for his recent struggles is him not being able to locate his cutter or his fastball.
"I think it was just the location of my pitches, and that's why they were able to hit the home runs right there," Vásquez said. "Just all about location."
The Padres got two runners on base following a walk by Samad Taylor and a single by Merrill. Sheets earned his second RBI with a line drive single to right, but it would be the only run they would score in the inning.
San Diego generated some traffic on the bases in the seventh with a single and a walk by Wagner and Freddy Fermin. Tatis Jr. singled on a 0-2 count for an RBI single to lower the deficit to 10-3, and Taylor drew his second walk to load the bases. But the Padres failed to capitalize on the opportunity after the Dodgers switched from relievers Kyle Hurt to Alex Vesia, who struck out Merrill and grounded Manny Machado into a force out to end the frame.
The Dodgers loaded the bases with no outs for the second time in the eighth and would tack on four more runs with an RBI single by Muncy, an RBI groundout by Edman and two-run single by Tucker. Dodgers scored their final run in the ninth with a single by Ryan Ward, replacing Freeman.
For the rest of the game San Diego avoided using any high leverage pitchers and used David Morgan for the eighth and catcher Rodolfo Durán in the ninth. Each gave up a run and two hits. With how the game script was going, the Padres are planning to use a bulk of their strong arms on Sunday.
Sunday's series finale will start at 1:10 p.m. The starting pitchers will be right-hander Michael King (5-6, 3.33 ERA) and right-hander Emmet Sheehan (3-5, 5.32 ERA).