by Megan Garcia
The Dodgers and Padres are now separated by five games in the National League West.
An intense back-and-forth game saw the first-place Dodgers come out on top with an 8–6 win on Tuesday at Dodger Stadium. Andy Pages and Will Smith were the hitters that powered the Dodgers’ 26th comeback victory of the season.
Tension in this series started to build on Monday when Pages was hit by a fastball from starter Dylan Cease in the fourth inning. Things were heightened on Tuesday when both teams were issued warnings after Shohei Ohtani was hit by a pitch in the bottom of the third inning.
San Diego’s Fernando Tatis Jr. was hit by a pitch from Lou Trivino in the top of the third.
Manager Dave Roberts was ejected from the game when coming out of the Dodger dugout to question the warning.
“When something like that happens, it fuels us,” Pages said of Roberts’ ejection. “He was trying to defend his players.”
Pages went 4-for-4 on Tuesday with two home runs, three runs batted in and three runs scored. This was his third career four-hit game and his first career multi-homer game.
“I have a lot of confidence in the work I’m putting in; I have a lot of confidence in my plan and what I’m doing at the plate and preparing for the game,” Pages said of his success on Tuesday. “I’m finding pitches in the zone and hitting them as well as I can.”
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Pages hit a solo homer in the second after Max Muncy put the Dodgers on the board with a sacrifice fly. The 386-foot shot surpassed his home run (13) and RBI (46) total during his 2024 rookie season. It also gave the Dodgers a 2–1 lead.
In the fourth inning, he connected on a sinker from starter Randy Vásquez and sent it over the wall in center field.
Pages’ 15 home runs and 49 RBI rank second on the Dodgers.
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“I want to win the series and that’s a push for me,” Pages said. “That adrenaline is always there and on a day like today there was a little bit more.”
Smith hit a two-run homer to center field to jumpstart the Dodgers’ five-run inning sixth inning. The Dodgers led 8–3 after six innings.
The veteran slugger has scored in seven consecutive games since June 8. In that span, he’s batting .393 (11-for-28) with nine runs scored and seven RBI.
Six Dodger pitchers were deployed against the Padres in a scheduled bullpen game. Tanner Scott worked a third game in a row and earned his 14th save of the season.
Andy Pages’ career night fuels a Dodger win over the Padres was originally published in Dodger Insider on Medium, where people are continuing the conversation by highlighting and responding to this story.