SAN DIEGO — Five days ago, the Dodgers finally seemed to be building some late-season momentum.
In the span of a week, however, they have once again squandered any real forward progress.
Coming off a sweep of the San Diego Padres at home last weekend, the Dodgers appeared to be in strong position for the stretch run. They’d built a two-game lead in the National League West. They had the last-place Colorado Rockies up next on the schedule. And even with a trip to San Diego looming after that, they were primed to potentially take a stranglehold in the standings.
Instead, the team split its four-game set in Denver, giving a game back to the Padres while San Diego took three of four from the San Francisco Giants in the same span.
Then, in Friday’s series opener at Petco Park, the Padres punched back in a rivalry the Dodgers had owned for most of this season, using a 2-1 win to draw even atop the National League West.
Before Friday, beating the Padres (73-56) was the one thing this year’s underwhelming Dodgers team had consistently done well. They had taken eight of the previous 10 matchups. Their sweep at Dodger Stadium last week felt like a statement, poised to break the team out of an extended summer funk.
But after a disappointing week against the Rockies, the Dodgers (73-56) once again fell flat in front of a sold-out Petco Park crowd.
Rookie infielder Alex Freeland hit his first career home run in the third inning, opening the scoring on a hanging sweeper from Yu Darvish. But after that, the veteran Japanese right-hander went on the attack, retiring 10 of the final 11 batters he faced in a dominant six-inning start.
Blake Snell, meanwhile, started strong in his first outing at Petco Park since leaving the Padres at the end of 2023. Through three innings, he had silenced the Padres beneath a barrage of curveballs and well-located heaters. But in the fourth, Fernando Tatis Jr. drew a leadoff walk, Manny Machado singled him home after a sacrifice bunt (one of three the Padres executed in an apparent pre-determined game plan), Ryan O’Hearn followed with another hit on a slider that hung up, and Xander Bogaerts flipped the score with a sacrifice fly to make it 2-1.
Snell was excellent the rest of the way, completing seven innings for the first time in his Dodgers career.
Alas, it didn’t matter.
Because even after Darvish left the game, the Dodgers’ offense couldn’t claw back.
Their best opportunity came in the eighth, when hard-throwing Padres deadline acquisition Mason Miller walked Michael Conforto and Freeland to create a jam. With one out, however, Dalton Rushing came to the plate as a pinch-hitter, rolled a ground ball on a 101-mph fastball to the right side, and couldn’t get to first in time to beat out a double play (he was initially called safe, but a Padres challenge overturned the call). The inning ended with Shohei Ohtani waiting on deck.
The Dodgers mounted one last rally in the ninth, recording their first hits since Freeland’s homer on singles from Mookie Betts and Freddie Freeman. But Padres closer Robert Suarez escaped the jam by striking out Teoscar Hernández to end the game — leaving the Dodgers once again on the back foot, just days after they had finally seemed to have found solid ground.
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