LOS ANGELES — The San Diego Padres might consider the Dodgers their bitter rivals. But Saturday night, they were their own worst enemy.
In the first two innings alone, Padres starter Dylan Cease walked six batters, center fielder Jackson Merrill dropped a fly ball and three Padres baserunners were thrown out trying to steal second base. That fueled a five-run head start for the Dodgers, who went on to beat the Padres 6-0.
The sloppy start took the edge off the middle game of the showdown series. But the Dodgers’ back-to-back wins this weekend allowed them to regain sole possession of first place in the National League West and ensured they will have at least a share of first when the Dodger Stadium half of the home-and-home matchup ends Sunday. The two teams will meet again at Petco Park next weekend.
“Every game from here on out is gonna matter,” Dodgers catcher Will Smith said. “So we want as big a lead as we can get. We want to win the division. That’s our first goal.”
The Padres spent those first two innings Saturday taking aim and shooting themselves in the foot. It was the only target Cease located accurately.
The first three batters reached base against Dodgers starter Blake Snell on two singles and a double. The two singles were each followed quickly by a failed attempt to steal second base and Snell escaped the inning having retired just one batter (Merrill on a fly out).
Xander Bogaerts led off the second inning with a single, making it four hits in the first five Padres batters. He made the same mistake as Fernando Tatis Jr. and Manny Machado in the first inning, getting thrown out by Smith when he tried to steal second.
Smith is the first Dodgers catcher to throw out three baserunners in a game since Russell Martin in June 2010 against the Angels. He is tied with Boston’s Carlos Narvaez for the major-league lead with 24 caught stealing this season.
“Will kind of held it down. Through two innings, he had three outs and I had three outs,” Snell joked. “But that kind of set the tone. I was surprised at how aggressive they were being on the bases. I mean they know me pretty well, so it was good to get a lot of tells early on what they were doing, what they were trying to do.”
Snell has allowed just three runs in 16 innings over three starts since returning from his shoulder injury – and those three were on two spring-size home runs at Tampa’s temporary home, Steinbrenner Field. His next start will be against the Padres again next weekend in San Diego.
“There’s a lot I need to work on honestly. Which I’ll do that,” he said. “I’ll face them next and I’m aware they’re going to listen to the interview, so I won’t say too much. But there’s a lot that I’m looking forward to seeing and cleaning up.
“The results have been good, but there’s things I need to do better. It can’t be this way forever. If I’m not efficient, dominating the zone, the shapes of pitches aren’t where I want them – the results are good, but I’m chasing something different than that. So I got to get better.”
Snell took the gifts from the Padres and ran with them. He allowed just one more hit after Bogaerts’ leadoff single in the second inning. Aided by the Padres’ self-defeating aggressiveness early, Snell went six scoreless innings, the longest of the five starts he has made as a Dodger this season.
Cease announced his presence with authority, walking the first three batters he faced. Cease threw just five strikes in his first 17 pitches. The Dodgers cashed in one with a sacrifice fly by Teoscar Hernandez and two more on a two-out, full-count single by Michael Conforto.
“He couldn’t get in the zone early,” Smith said. “We were patient, waited him out, were able to draw some walks, get some sac flies and push runs across.”
Cease walked two more batters in the second inning but was ready to strand them when he got Freddie Freeman to loft a fly ball to the warning track in right-center field.
Both Merrill and right fielder Fernando Tatis Jr. converged on the ball, with Merrill reaching out to make the catch. The ball bounced off Merrill’s glove, and two unearned runs scored on the error.
Cease threw 58 pitches to get through the first two innings (only 27 strikes) and wasn’t long for the mound. He was pulled in the fourth inning. Padres reliever David Morgan gave up a solo home run to Hernandez in the fifth inning.
“I thought it was great,” Dodgers manager Dave Roberts said of the early getaway. “With a guy that has big stuff, it’s hard to trust getting deep into a count, running a count, taking close pitches. But clearly he was being a little bit too fine, getting behind hitters and our guys were taking walks which was big. Got his pitch count up and (they) couldn’t get him through four.”
The highlight of the later innings, as the Dodgers’ bullpen closed out a six-hit shutout, came in the top of the seventh when Edgardo Henriquez replaced Snell on the mound.
The right-handed reliever had five pitches in the inning that were measured at 100.5 mph or higher, including a 103.3 mph fastball to Ryan O’Hearn for a called third strike to end the seventh inning. It was the fastest pitch recorded by a Dodgers pitcher during the Statcast era (which began in 2015).
“It’s a special talent,” Roberts said. “He’s a young kid, but he’s not scared, and he’s definitely an uncomfortable at-bat.”
Saturday’s win assures the Dodgers will win the season series against the Padres (they lead 7-2). They will go for a sweep Sunday. Under the same circumstances against a different first-place team (the Toronto Blue Jays) last weekend, they stranded a season-high 16 runners on base and blew a lead late, spiraling into a four-game losing streak.
The Dodgers haven’t won three games in a row since July 3.
“We’re going to sleep well tonight, be ready to win three tomorrow,” Roberts said. “But I’m just happy that we’re playing better baseball. It just seems like we’re playing clean baseball. We’re minimizing the walks, taking walks, not making outs on the bases, and converting outs when we need to. When you have the talent that we do, you just have to kind of play good baseball.
“We had a chance to win three against the Blue Jays a week ago, so we’ve got that same opportunity. … This is a good time to go for the jugular before we go to Denver.”