With fireworks filling the skies for the 250th Fourth of July, the San Diego Padres offense managed little more than an early fizzle against Dodgers starter Yoshinobu Yamamoto in a 3-0 loss to Los Angeles at Uniqlo Field at Dodger Stadium on Saturday night.
The pair of failed ABS challenges in the fourth inning seemed to typify the night for San Diego (43-45), both times seeing pitches nick the outside-bottom of the zone on offerings to Gavin Sheets and Xander Bogaerts. It was Yamamoto’s seventh time pitching seven or more for Los Angeles (59-31), whom the Brown and Gold have taken two of the nine meetings against this season.
"We've been battling pretty hard offensively and doing a little bit better — today, not the case, (Yamamoto) shoved it against us. It's one of those days, it sucks that it's in this time frame where we're struggling as a team, but we've got to pick up the pieces and bounce back tomorrow," manager Craig Stammen said.
After hanging tough through the first five innings as opener Wandy Peralta and Griffin Canning limited the Dodgers to one run through the first five innings, Kyle Hart came on for the sixth inning and left a middle-middle slider that Freddie Freeman made no mistake with, hitting his 15th home run and doubling the LA lead.
Fernando Tatis Jr. was the only Padre to get into scoring position all night, collecting two of the four Padres hits and putting late pressure on with a two-out double in the eighth off reliever Brock Stewart. But Alex Vesia came out of the pen to put an end to the threat with a K.
Then, the lone Padres All Star participant Mason Miller allowed LA to tack on another, as he hit the lead off man and allowed a one-out RBI single to Freeman, just Miller’s fourth earned run allowed. A double play ground out by Mookie Betts got him out of the inning.
"It's definitely hard to have that many days off or not have pitched that much in the last two weeks, and then go out there and be a sharp as you can against some of the best hitters in the world," Stamemen said. "Hopefully this is one of those outings (where Miller) got himself back out there, feels the adrenaline, and then we can start playing better baseball and get him a lead late in the game."
Canning had been penciled in as the starter for the game, but Padres manager and staff made the decision yesterday to turn to Peralta as the opener, liking the possibility to get the most possible bulk to help support the bullpen.
Peralta was able to put up a zero in the first, walking Freeman and then allowing a double to Betts, but Jackson Merrill recorded his team-best fifth outfield assist as he hit cutoff man Bogaerts, who zipped it home in time to cut down Freeman at home and end the first.
The decision largely worked, as Canning was able to get through the fifth inning having thrown 73 pitches and allowing just a lone run and two hits while working around a pair of walks.
Even in the third inning where the Dodgers scored, it could’ve been significantly worse as Dalton Rushing walked and Alex Freeland singled, then Canning spiked a slider for a wild pitch. But after striking out Tommy Edman and allowing an RBI single to first time NL All Star Andy Pages, Canning battled back from a 2-0 count to strike out Freeman and won an eight-pitch battle with Betts and getting a fly out to the warning track in straight-away center.
"(We) definitely came into this game thinking we'd piece it together with the bullpen and see what Griffin would give us, we weren't really trying to stretch him out to five-six-seven innings. We knew we were facing a really good pitcher on the other side who was going to limit how many runs we were going to score, so we had to do our best to do that and the pitchers did a great job," Stammen said.
Still, that one run was enough to tag Canning with his sixth loss — three have come allowing three or fewer runs.
All the while the offense was unable to get on track despite getting the lead off man on board in the first two innings. Tatis slapped the first pitch of the game from Yamamoto for a single, then Gavin Sheets notched a two-out single that put Tatis on third.
But that would be the only RISP opportunity the Brown and Gold would get against the Dodgers starter, as Yamamoto did not allow another hit after Bogaerts led off the second with a knock. But he was quickly erased on a hit-and-run play where Merrill hit it on the line to first base and Freeman was able to pick it off the shelf and step on the bag for a double play.
After that, Yamamoto settled in and made use of his devastating combination of fastballs and showed pin-point control in attacking low and away from San Diego hitters to ring up a career-high 10 strikeouts overall. The righty earned his ninth win allowing just three hits and a pair of walks.
Will Klein picked up his second save.
For the series finale, southpaw JP Sears (1-1, 6.97 ERA) is slated to make his third start of the season for San Diego, looking to break an eight-game losing streak, the longest for the Padres since 2013. Los Angeles counters by sending third-year righty Emmet Sheehan (4-5, 5.08 ERA) to the hill for the 4:20 p.m. PT first pitch in Chavez Ravine. It’ll be the third time this season the Padres have seen Sheehan, who pitched to a no-decision in the Dodgers 5-4 win on May 19 and then earned the win for LA in his last outing on June 28.
"When you're scuffling like this it just manifests itself whenever you make one mistake the team takes advantage of it and you can't get back from it, but its not like the Diamondbacks or the Blue Jays — the next teams we face — are any easier. We've got a tough road ahead of us, and it's about bouncing back," Stamemen said.
The game will be nationally televised on NBC, with streaming coverage on Peacock. 2007 NL Cy Young winner Jake Peavy will represent the Padres as a color commentator, joining Dodgers’ 1988 World Series MVP and NL Cy Young winner Orel Hershiser on the broadcast, with play-by-play voiced by Jason Benetti.
This story was updated at 10:21 p.m.