SAN DIEGO — The Dodgers entered the late innings Monday in an unenviable position: trailing the Padres, whose biggest strength is their bullpen.
“When they have a lead they don’t relinquish it too often,” manager Dave Roberts said after the Dodgers’ 1-0 loss Monday. “You know the numbers — when they’re ahead in the seventh inning they don’t lose. You do have to be a little more aggressive and capitalize when you do get those chances.”
Including Monday, the Padres are 20-2 when leading after six innings, 21-1 when leading after seven, and they have a perfect 22-0 record when leading after eight.
Even when Padres closer Mason Miller got off to an uncharacteristically wild start in the ninth inning Monday, the Dodgers failed to capitalize.
He walked Freddie Freeman and Kyle Tucker on nine pitches. And the next three batters — Will Smith, Max Muncy and Andy Pages — all have proven their ability to do damage in clutch moments.
But it was Miller on the mound, a rare reliever who could actually challenge for the Cy Young Award.
“In this kind of series, you know you’re going to have close games,” Freeman said after the game. “And we just couldn’t get it done.”
Miller got out of the jam with a fly out, strikeout and ground ball, and notched his league-leading 15th save.
Shohei Ohtani dives back to first base in the fourth inning.
(Tony Ding / Ap Photo/tony Ding)
“We still had really good at-bats,” Freeman said. “There’s a silver lining to it. Scoring off Mason is going to be really hard to do. It’s going to take one of those kinds of innings where you can maybe walk a couple of guys and get a bloop. Not much squaring up going on against him.
“But we had an opportunity, maybe with him throwing a lot of pitches might make him be down next game. You just try to have little wins.”
The Dodgers could also avoid him by claiming a lead. On Monday, Dodgers starter Yoshinobu Yamamoto held the Padres to three hits and one run — Miguel Andujar’s first-inning homer.
But the Dodgers’ offense, which scored 31 runs in a three-game series against the Angels, only managed four hits off Padres starting pitcher Michael King, and only one in the first five innings.
“You’re trying to cover realistically 30 inches,” Freeman said. “Because you have ball-to-strike pitches — you’ve got backdoor sliders that are starting as balls coming back, you’ve got front-door sinkers for lefties. So it’s not just the whole plate you’re worried about; you’re going to worry about a whole lot of different things. … He had all of it working tonight.”
The Dodgers finally strung some hits together in the sixth. With two outs and Hyeseong Kim on first, Shohei Ohtani beat out a swinging bunt, and the throw from Padres catcher Rodolfo Duran zipped past first base.
Kim, who took off from first on contact, rounded third hard but slammed on the brakes when third base coach Dino Ebel held up the stop sign.
“It’s kind of the timing of it, where [Fernando] Tatis [Jr.] came up with the ball, and Dino’s got to make the decision,” Roberts said. “You don’t know that he’s not going to come up with it clean. At that point in time, to be quite honest, Dino had the best view of the runner coming in, Kim, and where they were at on the field. So it’s one of those things, I’m definitely not going to second guess it.”
Kim was stranded there.
Then in the eighth, he again made it to third on a single from Ohtani with two outs. And again, he got stuck 90 feet away from tying the score.
Dishing about what you’re reading is one of life’s greatest pleasures. Even better if your audience has read the same book. Reading with others also provides space to deepen community, ignite conversations and share moments of joy. Los Angeles needs that more than ever right now as we continue to shoulder a heavy 2025 marked by fires and ICE raids. But how to choose a book to get started? The best books to read in groups inspire a dialogue. They have sparkling prose and unshakable narratives. These were the guiding factors for compiling our recommendations for all kinds of readers.
We surveyed 200-plus luminaries in the book and journalism worlds to make this in-depth list. The voters included prizewinning authors, indie bookstore owners, a Man Booker Prize judge, Ivy League professors, literary agents, lauded journalists and several zealous book club members. To ensure an especially varied selection, the editors gave a final curatorial pass.
The list includes 10 categories for every type of reader, whether you reach for literary fiction or romance. We also crowned an “Ultimate Book Club Pick,” which is the title that received the most votes out of all the books by a landslide, and happens to be eerily prophetic (find it among the “Make-Believers” selections). Of course, we couldn’t include every worthy book. Let us know your picks and pull up a chair next to us. Why not read together? — Sophia Kercher
If you buy books linked on our site, The Times may earn a commission from Bookshop.org, whose fees support independent bookstores.
Families, in their various flavors, have been essential to television since that light first flickered on. They may be ideal or nightmarish, or both, or in between, and we take to them — be they Waltons or Addamses or Simpsons — according to our own experience or desires, having known families of our own or wanted something other than what we had.
In “Schitt’s Creek,” Dan Levy co-created — with his father, Eugene, yet — one of the medium’s greatest family comedies. It was a show that grew over time from a basic premise about rich people who lose their money and are forced to live at close quarters in adjoining motel rooms to a paean to love, understanding and acceptance. It swept the comedy categories at the 2020 Emmys, including acting awards for both Levys, Catherine O’Hara and Annie Murphy and writing and directing trophies for Dan.
“To family” are in fact the last words spoken in the first season of “Bad Mistakes,” Levy’s noisy, funny new show, co-created with Rachel Sennott and now streaming on Netflix — though given what precedes it, it’s less a blessing than a curse. Levy plays Nicky, a pastor at a sparsely attended suburban New Jersey church of no evident denomination. He’s out as gay, but supposedly celibate; that he has a boyfriend, Tareq (Jacob Gutierrez), is known only to Tareq; this, of course, creates a secret, which will create pressure, which will create comedy.
Sister Morgan (Taylor Ortega) is an elementary school teacher, a job that doesn’t quite jibe with everything else we see about her — it’s barely represented, anyway, summer having come — and a very longtime boyfriend, Max (Jack Innanen), who has decided that now is the moment to propose. She had once tried acting in New York, which means that she lived a wilder life once and is something of an improviser. Their mother, Linda (Laurie Metcalf), who owns a hardware store, is running for mayor and the campaign is being managed by extra daughter Natalie (Abby Quinn).
The series begins as their grandmother is dying, and at Linda’s command, they rush out to buy her a present — Linda is trying to squeeze in an “early birthday” before her mother passes. And because she is that sort of person, Morgan shoplifts what she imagines is a cheap necklace from a convenience store. (Attendant Yusuf, played by Boran Kuzum, will have much to do.) The necklace isn’t cheap, it turns out, for no particularly good reason, and the convenience store isn’t just a convenience store, but a kind of waystation for stolen goods run by local Russian mobsters. As a result, Morgan and Nicky find themselves forced to run errands for them, under threat of death, or worse.
The show gets very complicated on its way to a circular semi-conclusion; there is a lot going on, with Linda’s mayoral ambitions and various relationship issues. (Elizabeth Perkins plays Max’s mother, bridging storylines.) But it’s a good ride, and classic in its way; searching the phrase “get mixed up with gangsters” brings forth a host of old comedies. Through the dodgiest situations, brother and sister do not hesitate to argue. Nicky would love to be anywhere else, while Morgan finds it invigorating. Though it is all improbable, the parts do mesh neatly; they make television sense.
Finally, the series rests on the shoulders of the three principal players, who are just a pleasure to watch; the camera obliges by moving in close. Levy brings a soft-spoken breathlessness you may recognize from his David Rose on “Schitt’s”; his softly muttered “OK,” which might just mean “stop talking,” is almost a trademark. Ortega brings a kind of poignance to her reborn wild child, while Metcalf plays Linda with a kind of small-town operatic intensity, eyes popped and pronunciation precise — she’s like a country cousin to O’Hara’s Moira Rose — as if she were onstage pitching to the back row of the theater.
Michelle Pfeiffer and Elle Fanning in “Margo’s Got Money Troubles,” premiering April 15, 2026 on Apple TV.
(Allyson Riggs/Courtesy of Apple)
In “Margo’s Got Money Problems, premiering Wednesday on Apple TV, Elle Fanning plays the title character, a college student flattered into bed by her married-with-children writing professor, Mark (Michael Angarano), despite my shouting at the screen for her not to do it. Soon she is pregnant, and soon after that the essentially single mother of baby Bodhi, unable to find work or the time to write. (As the heroine, we assume her talent.)
Presumably in search of some normalcy, Margo’s mother, Shyanne (Michelle Pfeiffer), a former good time girl — but still sparkly — has become engaged to Kenny (Greg Kinnear), Christian, square and sincere; the Ralph Bellamy of the piece, you are not asked to take him quite seriously (though Kinnear plays him straight). Shyanne’s ex-husband is Jinx, a former professional wrestler, played by Nick Offerman with the low-key affect of Ron Swanson, dialed down even further; depression and drug addiction will do that to you. Fresh out of rehab, he trades a championship belt for a motorcycle and joins the household; though he left Margo early, and unlike Shyanne, he proves to have a marvelous, easy way with Bodhi. (The baby himself, or babies — they use twins for this job — are themselves marvelous.)
Also in residence is roommate Susie (Thaddea Graham), a chirpy cosplayer — and coincidentally Jinx’s biggest fan — whose skills will become valuable as Margo, needing cash, sets off into the world of OnlyFans. First picking up tips describing followers’ penises in terms of Pokémon (no explanation has been thought necessary), she pivots to video, mounting increasingly elaborate sexy sci-fi productions alongside Susie (sets and costumes), Jinx (narrative advice, stunt coordinator) and OnlyFans veterans KC (Rico Nasty) and Rose (Lindsey Normington), a fabulous tag team to whom Margo turns for advice. (Margo does seem to take things over, but it’s her name in the title, so there you go.) This introduces an element of Mickey and Judy, my uncle’s got a barn, let’s put on a show comedy. More important, it creates a team, melding the family you make with the family you have.
It’s as sweet as can be. Apart from sleeping with one’s professor — students, do not do this! — the show is positive about just about everything: motherhood, daughterhood, professional wrestling, second chances, sex work, cosplaying and the way art shows up in strange places. Only Marcia Gay Harden, as Mark’s mother, Elizabeth, is an outright villain, and you will hate her.
The series was created by David E. Kelley (Mr. Michelle Pfeiffer), from Rufi Thorpe’s 2024 novel, once again under the umbrella of Nicole Kidman’s Blossom Films (following their collaborations on “Big Little Lies,” “Nine Perfect Strangers” and “Love & Death”), with its house style of well-upholstered capital-Q Quality (as distinct, in its pop-cult, way, from prestige). (Kidman has a small role as a wrestler-turned-lawyer and it’s been a while since I’ve seen her this well used.) “Margo’s Got Money Problems” can be terribly sentimental, almost corny — the climax is pure Hollywood — but undeniably effective. And if its mix of comedy and drama can be a little destabilizing, you won’t need to worry about where it ends up.
