SAN DIEGO — The San Diego Padres are headed back to the playoffs for the fourth time in six seasons.
The Padres clinched a playoff berth with a 5-4, 11-inning win against the three-time NL-Central champion Milwaukee Brewers on Monday night.
Freddy Fermin, acquired from Kansas City at the trade deadline on July 31, singled in automatic runner Bryce Johnson with one out in the 11th to set off a wild celebration in front of a sellout crowd of 42,371 at Petco Park.
The Padres pulled within 2½ games of the idle Dodgers in the NL West race and 2½ games behind the idle Chicago Cubs in the race for the National League’s first of three wild-card spots.
Manny Machado, shirtless, wearing sunglasses and drenched with beer and Champagne, says he feels good about the team’s chances in the playoffs.
“Everything is different. But we’ve got heart,” Machado said. “Everybody wants it. It’s always a challenge. Baseball’s a challenge. It’s hard.”
Fermin was being interviewed when Machado stopped by and poured a shot of tequila into his mouth.
“I believe with this staff we have, we are going to the World Series,” said Fermin, the catcher. “It is very special, this moment. I don’t have words for this moment. Very special. First step, we’ve got to keep rolling this.”
The Padres’ road appears to be tougher than last year, when they swept the Atlanta Braves in a home wild-card series to earn a shot at the rival Dodgers. San Diego led 2-1 before their bats went so cold that they didn’t score in the last 24 innings as they lost the series in five games. The Dodgers went on to win the World Series.
“What this group has done this year, and even last year, to put this into place, and for us to go to the postseason two years in a row for the first time since 2005-06, is truly special,” second baseman Jake Cronenworth said.
If the current standings hold, the Padres would visit the Cubs for a best-of-three wild-card series. The winner would move into the division series against the Brewers, who clinched their third straight division title on Sunday and are in the postseason for the seventh time in eight seasons.
It’s been an interesting season for the Padres, who led the division for much of April before slipping back as they played .500 ball in May and sub-.500 ball in June. The Dodgers never could open a big lead, but the Padres never could regain the lead, except for brief stretches in August.
General manager A.J. Preller pulled off a major overhaul at the trade deadline, acquiring reliever Mason Miller from the Athletics, Fermin from the Royals and outfielders Ryan O’Hearn and Ramon Laureano from the Orioles.
The Padres became the first big league team to send three relievers to the All-Star Game when Jason Adam, closer Robert Suarez and left-hander Adrián Morejón were selected for the Midsummer Classic. Adam went down with a season-ending quadriceps injury on Sept. 1.
The Padres were prone to offensive slumps, particularly on the road.
But there were some defensive highlights, including several home run robberies by right fielder Fernando Tatis Jr.
Tatis missed the clincher with an undisclosed illness, but Machado included his teammate in the postgame celebration via FaceTime on his phone.
SAN FRANCISCO — This is the time to bring on the rivals. The Dodgers are used to taking on challengers down the pennant stretch: the San Francisco Giants and San Diego Padres — and, in a previous version of the National League West, the Atlanta Braves and Cincinnati Reds.
The final two weeks of the regular season are upon us. The Dodgers have one remaining head-to-head matchup that really matters — and that series starts Monday at Dodger Stadium, against the Philadelphia Phillies.
The Phillies?
The Phillies have not been realigned into the NL West. However, although the three division champions automatically qualify for the playoffs, the two with the best records earn a bye into the division series. The division champion with the third-best record — right now, that would be the Dodgers — must play in the first round.
The Milwaukee Brewers, the presumed champions of the NL Central, boast the best record in baseball. The Phillies, the presumed champions of the NL East, lead the Dodgers by 4 ½ games. The Dodgers have 13 games to play.
The Dodgers got a bye and lost in the division series in 2022. They got a bye and lost in the division series in 2023. They got a bye and came within one game of elimination in the division series in 2024. Would they be better off not getting a bye and playing in the first round?
“There is not a question in my mind that that does not make sense,” Andrew Friedman, the Dodgers’ president of baseball operations, told me last week. “It is better for your World Series odds to not play those three games.”
The five days off that come with a bye can disrupt the timing of hitters. They also can allow time for injured and weary players to recover — that could be critical for Dodgers catcher Will Smith, in particular — and for the Dodgers to arrange their starting rotation just the way they might like it. And, of course, you can’t be eliminated in the first round if you don’t play in it.
“We have made our life more difficult to this point,” Friedman said, “but I still think we have a really good run in us, and we’ll make it competitive. So obviously these three games against Philly are really important in that.”
What if the three games against the Phillies go poorly?
Even if they don’t, the Dodgers might not win the division. The Padres are closer to the Dodgers than the Dodgers are to the Phillies.
San Diego trails the Dodgers by 2½ games in the NL West.
If the Padres win the NL West, how much would that hurt the Dodgers’ chances of a lengthy postseason run?
Not much, if at all. Both teams almost certainly would end up in the wild-card round.
The NL West champion would play the last team into the NL field, most likely the Giants or New York Mets and maybe even the Reds or Arizona Diamondbacks, with the chance the opponent exhausted its pitching just to get into the playoffs. The other team would play the Chicago Cubs, and would avoid the possibility of facing the surging Phillies until the NLCS.
If the NL West comes down to the last day or two, the Dodgers would have to determine whether to use their best starters on that final weekend or line them up for the wild-card series.
In that scenario, what might be the decisive factor in the Dodgers’ calculus?
The NL West champion would play all three games of the wild-card round at home; the runner-up likely would play all three games on the road. The Dodgers are 48-26 at home, 36-39 on the road. (The Padres are 47-28 at home, 35-40 on the road.)
Would there be any precedent for the Dodgers not minding if the Padres won the NL West?
In 1996, the Dodgers and Padres were tied for the NL West lead heading into the final day of the regular season, with the two teams facing one another. Both teams were guaranteed a playoff spot.
The Padres won the game, and with it the division. The Dodgers started Martinez in their playoff opener three days later. They lost that game, and they were swept in the series by the Braves. The winning pitchers in that series, in order: John Smoltz, Greg Maddux and Tom Glavine.
How many games are the Dodgers on pace to win?
Ninety-one.
In Friedman’s previous 10 seasons running the Dodgers, what is the fewest number of games they have won?
Ninety-one, in 2016.
How did the Dodgers do that October?
They earned a bye into the division series, in which they beat the Washington Nationals. They lost to the Chicago Cubs in the league championship series.
San Diego Padres pitcher Jason Adam is out for the season after he ruptured a quad tendon Monday when planting his left foot while trying to field a comebacker.
Now we know what can tilt a pennant race between two teams whose performance has been roughly even with a month to go before the playoffs.
An injury is never celebrated, but it can prompt a feeling of relief, which is probably the Dodgers’ unspoken reaction.
Adam, you see, is untouchable when pitching against the Dodgers. He has never given up a run to them in 15 appearances dating back to 2019.
A 6-foot-3, right-handed reliever with a funky, short-armed delivery, Adam hasn’t been scored on in six appearances against the Dodgers this season, five appearances last season — including three in the National League Division Series — two more in 2023 and two in 2019.
Dodgers hitters are seven for 51 (.137) with one double, two walks and 16 strikeouts in 15 1/3 innings against Adam, who usually pitches the seventh or eighth inning, although he does have 24 career saves.
Adam is tough for anyone to hit, despite being particularly dominant against Los Angeles. Acquired by the Padres from the Tampa Bay Rays at the 2024 trade deadline, he is 11-4 with a 1.37 earned-run average in 92 appearances since then.
Now, though, he is sidelined until 2026, and the Padres recognize that the loss is profound.
“When that happens, you focus on the big picture, his health, what it means to the team,” Padres outfielder Gavin Sheets told the San Diego Union-Tribune. “It definitely puts a dark cloud over the day for all of us.”
The Padres — like the Dodgers — have lost key players to injury. Shortstop Xander Bogaerts is on the injured list with a fracture in his left foot. All-Star right fielder Fernando Tatis Jr. pulled his right hamstring Sunday and did not play Monday.
General manager A.J. Preller fortified the roster at the trading deadline, and Adam told him after the injury Monday that he was grateful for the addition of dynamic reliever Mason Miller.
“I told A.J., I’m really glad he went out and got Mason,” Adam told reporters. “I’m excited to cheer those guys on.
“Knowing this group, the mental toughness they have, the skill, there is everything in this clubhouse to win the World Series. You want to be a part of that…. That’s the hardest part.”
The Dodgers figured they had tilted the bullpen balance in their direction when they signed Padres closer Tanner Scott to a four-year, $72-million free-agent contract during the offseason.
But Scott has been disappointing, posting a 4.44 ERA with eight blown saves for the Dodgers, including giving up a three-run home run Sunday.
Miller, meanwhile, has a 1.64 ERA in 11 appearances with the Padres. All he could think about Monday was his teammate Adam.
“Really heartbreaking…. obviously, it sucks losing him, not only for what he does on the mound but the type of person he is,” Miller said.
For both the Dodgers and San Diego Padres, the assignment over the next few weeks figured to be simple:
Take care of business and beat the teams you’re supposed to.
After all, the Dodgers are beginning a stretch of 15 straight games against clubs below .500. The Padres, meanwhile, will play 13 of their next 16 games against opponents with losing records, the lone exception being the 68-67 Cincinnati Reds.
It appeared to be an opportunity for each contender to stack up wins, build late-season momentum and try to wrest away control of a division race that the Dodgers currently lead by two games.
The only problem: They both flunked their first test on Friday.
Beating the bad teams, it turns out, isn’t always as easy as it seems.
In Los Angeles, the Dodgers suffered a lackluster 3-0 loss to the underperforming Arizona Diamondbacks, managing just three hits and getting only one runner in scoring position en route to suffering their seventh shutout this season. The Padres, meanwhile, were knocked around by the tanking Minnesota Twins in a 7-4 defeat earlier in the evening.
It meant, for one night, the standings remained static.
Instead of catapulting themselves into exceedingly soft portions of their schedules, both teams stumbled to equally disappointing results.
At Chavez Ravine, the Dodgers’ loss snapped their four-game winning streak — halting their recent upswing both on the mound and at the plate.
Starting pitcher Blake Snell gave up three runs in 5⅓ innings and battled through a stark drop in fastball velocity. After entering the night averaging 95.4 mph with his heater, Snell was stuck closer to 93 mph in his first start since the birth of his second child last weekend.
“I had a busy week, man. A lot going on,” Snell said of his velocity drop. “I’m not worried about [it]. I know what’s going on. So it’ll come back. I’m zero worried about it. I mean, I was aware of it. But I’m not gonna push it. It is what it is. It’s what I had today. Just gotta be better.”
Dodgers pitcher Blake Snell delivers in the first inning Friday against the Diamondbacks.
(Carlin Stiehl / Los Angeles Times)
Though he struck out eight batters and allowed only four hits, one of them was costly: a two-run home run by Blaze Alexander in the fourth, on a fastball over the plate that clocked in at only 93.4 mph. Snell’s night ended after two more knocks brought in a third run in the sixth, with Corbin Carroll hitting a leadoff double and scoring on Gabriel Moreno’s RBI single.
The bigger problem for the Dodgers (77-58), however, was their offense.
Arizona starter Zac Gallen entered the night in the midst of a dismal contract season, beginning play with a 5.13 earned-run average despite improved form in August. Against the Dodgers, though, he was lights out, yielding only two hits in six scoreless innings with eight strikeouts and three walks.
“We just obviously couldn’t figure anything out,” manager Dave Roberts said. “We just really couldn’t put anything together all night long.”
Indeed, even more troublesome was the Dodgers’ inability to generate much against the Diamondbacks’ bullpen — a woebegone unit that has spoiled Arizona’s playoff aspirations by ranking 26th in the majors with a 4.73 ERA.
Andy Pages managed a two-out single in the seventh but was left stranded. After that, the Dodgers’ only other baserunner came on a walk from Teoscar Hernández in the game’s penultimate at-bat.
“This was the first one in a while … that we’ve seen sort of a lackluster performance,” Roberts said, his club unable to extend its momentum after a sweep of the Reds. “Obviously you’ve got to give credit to Gallen, too. But it was one of those nights that I just didn’t see the at-bats that we’ve been seeing the last week.”
Of course, things didn’t go much better for the Padres (75-60) on Friday, either.
Before their game in Minnesota, the team announced that shortstop Xander Bogaerts was going on the injured list with a foot fracture, which could keep him out for the rest of the regular season. Then, Nestor Cortes followed up his six shutout innings against the Dodgers last week with a three-inning, three-run clunker that was punctuated with an ejection.
The night served as a missed opportunity for both NL West pace-setters; the Padres squandering a chance to cut the Dodgers’ two-game lead in half, only for the Dodgers to whiff on an opening to grow their lead at the top of the standings.
And in the coming days and weeks, both clubs will have to try to take care of business better. Because with no head-to-head matchups left between the Dodgers and Padres in the regular season, beating bad teams — and avoiding ugly losses like Friday’s — could dictate who ultimately wins the division.
“We’ve got to play well,” Roberts said. “Whether it’s the schedule or a tougher opponent, I don’t really think it matters. We got to go out and play good baseball and take good at-bats and just stack wins.”
Freeman, Call back in action
Despite the loss, the Dodgers did get good news on the injury front Friday, with both first baseman Freddie Freeman and outfielder Alex Call back in action after missing Wednesday’s game.
Freeman had been battling a neck stinger, but returned to the starting lineup and drew a walk in an otherwise 0-for-3 performance. Call avoided an IL stint after having a flare-up in his back on Tuesday, and came off the bench as a pinch-hitter for a groundout in the seventh.
Before MLB’s newest trophy was offered up as the prize in a competition between the Seattle Mariners and San Diego Padres, it had to pass through the hands of Pearl Jam frontman Eddie Vedder.
The custom Fender Telecaster guitar, named the Vedder Cup, is said to have been played by its namesake for “about an hour” before it was shipped off to T-Mobile Park in Seattle.
“He gave it a good run through,” George Webb, Pearl Jam’s equipment manager, told the Seattle Times on Monday. “He always likes to feel like he puts a little energy, you know, spiritual energy, into an instrument. Not just hand off something that’s brand-new, never-touched kind of thing. So yeah, jammed on it for about an hour. Had a good time.”
The trophy features many nods from the 60-year-old musician, including a hand-drawn “cresting wave” illustration and an arrow and mod symbol — an allusion to Vedder’s tribute to the Who on his personal guitar. On the back, the Padres and Mariners logos appear alongside text hand-written by the singer and guitarist: “The Vedder Cup Established 2025 by Major League Baseball.”
The Vedder Cup, a guitar shown off Monday by Cal Raleigh of the Seattle Mariners, will go each year to the winner of the full-season series between the Mariners and the San Diego Padres.
(Lindsey Wasson / Associated Press)
It also contains a logo from EB Research Partnership, a nonprofit co-founded by Vedder and his wife, Jill, after a childhood friend’s son was born with the painful skin condition epidermolysis bullosa. The nonprofit funds research on the disease.
The cup is intended to bring “meaningful awareness” to the rare disorder, Mariners Executive Vice President and Chief Operating Officer Trevor Gooby said in a statement in March, when the longtime rivalry became official.
“We can’t wait to see this rivalry series grow and look forward to battling the Mariners for the Vedder Cup,” Padres Chief Executive Erik Greupner added.
The rivalry, such as it is, arose from forces both real and manufactured, apparently. Vedder has strong ties to both cities, having grown up in San Diego, then moved to Seattle to start Pearl Jam with Stone Gossard and Jeff Ament — hence, the “Vedder” Cup.
Also, upon the introduction of interleague play in the late ’90s, MLB looked for “natural” rivalries between teams like the Padres and Mariners. This year, the league canonized the rivalry, which is said to have begun as geographic, given both teams’ West Coast homes, Reuters reports.
The two teams have met almost annually since 1997. In the informal all-time series, Seattle currently leads 68-63. Additionally, they share a training complex in Peoria, Ariz.
Some fans are still left with questions as to why the competition has turned official, with one claiming on Reddit that “padres and mariners fans literally give no s— about each other.”
Still, they conceded it is “likely the most meaningless and yet kinda fun thing in MLB.”
The trophy was in the spotlight Monday when the teams met for the fourth time this season. The Mariners notched a 9-6 victory over the Padres, taking the season series after three previous wins in San Diego. The Padres beat the Mariners Tuesday, 7-6, and the final game is Wednesday, but the contest has already been decided. Cal Raleigh, the Mariners’ switch-hitting, homer-hammering catcher, known as “Big Dumper,” hoisted and played the trophy in celebration Monday night.
The name and logo for the cup were first shown off in March, but its final design wasn’t finished until the weeks leading up to the fixture.
“Typically on a custom build like this it will take us six months or so to source the wood, get everything mapped out ready to go and take our time to vet the process, apply the graphics, do some test runs,” Chase Paul, director of product development for Fender, told the Seattle Times. “On this we just kind of headed into it in parallel with testing and the production version at the same time, and kind of getting it ready to go.”
In all, it took Fender eight or nine weeks to get the work done, which Paul called a “really incredible effort by the team in the shop.”
Naturally, Vedder doesn’t want the trophy guitar to sit on a shelf for the next year while it’s in the Mariners’ possession. According to Webb, “He wants it to be played.”
“That’s his attitude with everything. It’s a living, breathing instrument. It sounds great,” he added.
As an added bonus to fans, the league announced it would give away limited-edition Vedder Cup hats during the last 2025 game between the two on Wednesday.
To no surprise, the exclusive ticket package that included the hats has sold out.
Hi, and welcome to another edition of Dodgers Dugout. My name is Houston Mitchell. Here we are, right back where we started.
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You play 131 games only to end up where you were before Game 1 began: tied with the Padres. OK, technically, the Dodgers are in first place right now because they hold the tiebreaker advantage over the Padres. But it feels like a tie.
Before we get to the main topic here, there are a couple of points worth mentioning, with all due respect to the players involved:
Unless there is an injury involved, Buddy Kennedy should not be starting any games over Alex Freeland or Miguel Rojas. Let’s look at those numbers, shall we?
And it’s not like Kennedy is Ozzie Smith with the glove out there, while Rojas makes plays like this one from last week. Freeland hasn’t played much, but he was ranked as their No. 3 prospect, so there’s little reason to play Kennedy over him.
—Michael Conforto has gotten plenty of runway now. Time for him to hit the bench and for Alex Call to play every day. There are 161 players who have at least 400 plate appearances this season. Where does Conforto rank among those players? Let’s look:
Batting average 158. Ryan McMahon, NYY, .216 159. Anthony Volpe, NYY, .208 160. Oneil Cruz, Pittsburgh, .207 161. Michael Conforto, Dodgers, .183
Not only is Conforto last, he is 24 points behind the next-worst player.
On-base% 151. Michael Conforto, Dodgers, .293 158. Teoscar Hernández, Dodgers, .277 159. Anthony Volpe, NYY, .274 160. Michael Harris II, Atlanta, .273 161. Adolis Garcia, Texas, .270
Gee, two Dodgers in the bottom 10. Perhaps Hernández didn’t want Conforto to feel so bad.
Slugging % 158. Joey Ortiz, Milwaukee, .328 159. Ke’Bryan Hayes, Cincinnati, .317 160. Michael Conforto, Dodgers, .314 161. Victor Scott II, St. Louis, .312
WAR (which also factors in defense) 158. Agustín Ramírez, Miami, -0.2 159. Eric Wagaman, Miami, -0.6 160. Michael Conforto, Dodgers, -0.9 161. Nick Castellanos, Philadelphia, -1.1
So, please, he might be the nicest guy in the history of the universe and I know he’s getting paid $17 million, but it’s not like you have to pay him more if you don’t play him. Until Tommy Edman and Kiké Hernández get back, let’s send Call out. I don’t care what hand the pitcher throws with.
With the two teams tied with 31 games remaining, let’s do a few more comparisons:
Longest winning streak Dodgers, 8 Padres, 7
Longest losing streak Dodgers, 7 Padres, 6
Most runs scored Dodgers, 19 Padres, 21
Most runs allowed Dodgers, 18 Padres, 14
Times shut out Dodgers, 6 Padres, 8
Times opponent was shut out Dodgers, 6 Padres, 15
Comeback wins Dodgers, 40 Padres, 33
Walkoff wins Dodgers, 8 Padres, 6
Walkoff losses Dodgers, 7 Padres, 6
Run differential Dodgers, +94 Padres, +57
Home Dodgers, 41-24, .631 Padres, 43-22, .662
Road Dodgers, 33-33, .500 Padres, 31-35, .470
Before the All-Star break Dodgers, 58-39, .598 Padres, 52-44, .542
After the All-Star break Dodgers, 16-18, .471 Padres, 22-13, .629
Extra-inning games Dodgers, 7-5, .583 Padres, 6-4, .600
One-run games Dodgers, 21-20, .512 Padres, 26-19, .578
Games decided by 5+ runs Dodgers, 21-9, .700 Padres, 18-14, .563
vs. NL West Dodgers, 25-11, .694 Padres, 24-18, .571
So what’s going to happen? No idea. Will the Dodgers’ offense remain erratic? Will the bullpen improve? Will the Padres get even better (because they have holes too)? I don’t what’s going to happen over the next 31 games. No one does. So don’t give in to pessimism or false hope. Enjoy each game as it happens. Get frustrated at times, sure. But these next 31 games will be exciting. A division race that comes down to the wire. It doesn’t get any better than that.
An interesting race
The race for the NL batting title is going to be interesting to follow. Here are the leaders after Sunday’s games:
Freddie Freeman, .302 Trea Turner, Philadelphia, .300 Sal Frelick, Milwaukee, .298 Will Smith, .297 Manny Machado, San Diego, .292 Xavier Edwards, Miami, .291 Nico Hoerner, Chicago, .291
Smith was leading the NL for quite a while this season, but the rigors of playing catcher have caught up to him, as he is hitting just .158 in August (9 for 57). That’s not meant as a criticism. Playing catcher is taxing, especially in the heat, and we’ve had a lot of warm nights in Los Angeles this month. The hope was that by releasing Austin Barnes and bringing up Dalton Rushing, the Dodgers could give Smith more days off, which they have, but it hasn’t helped.
In major league history, a catcher has won the batting title only seven times (Bubbles Hargrave in 1926, Ernie Lombardi in 1938 and 1942, Buster Posey in 2012 and Joe Mauer in 2006, 2008 and 2009.) All the foul balls you take off your body also take a tremendous toll.
Will Freeman hold on to win? Will Turner win another batting title? Tune in next week to find the answers, same Bat-time, same Bat-… wait wrong show.
And isn’t it amazing that only two players who qualify for the title are hitting .300?
Lou Johnson homers in Game 7 of the 1965 World Series to give the Dodgers the lead. Watch and listen here.
Until next time…
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SAN DIEGO — When he was finished rounding the bases at Petco Park on Sunday, Shohei Ohtani made a detour on his return to the Dodgers’ bench.
Seated by the visiting dugout was a fan in a San Diego Padres cap and brown Fernando Tatis Jr. jersey. The spectator had spent most of the afternoon reminding Ohtani of how much he’d stunk in the three-game series.
These were like scenes from the good old days, the Dodgers hitting bombs and laughing as they celebrated.
But was this a mirage?
Even after avoiding a sweep by the Padres with an 8-2 victory, even after moving back into a tie with them for the lead in the National League West, the Dodgers continued to be an enigma.
Who were they? The team that trampled the Padres in the series finale? Or the team that rolled over in the two previous games of the series?
“They’re gettable,” said a scout from a rival NL team who was in attendance.
The kind of game the Dodgers played on Sunday, however, prompted the same scout to attach this qualifier: They can’t be counted out.
One of baseball’s worst offensive teams over the last two months, the Dodgers blasted four home runs, including two by Freddie Freeman. The Dodgers claimed the lead on a three-run blast in the seventh inning by Dalton Rushing.
Yoshinobu Yamamoto did his part on the mound, picking up his 11th win by limiting the Padres to two runs over six innings.
The Dodgers have 31 games remaining in the regular season and they expect a number of their injured players to return over that period. The form they take will dramatically affect their chances in October.
Freddie Freeman, right, celebrates with Mookie Betts after hitting a two-run home run in the seventh inning against the Padres on Sunday.
(Derrick Tuskan / Associated Press)
Winning their division could position them to secure a top-two seed in the NL, which would grant them a first-round bye. Failing to do so would subject them to a dangerous best-of-three wild-card series.
Because of the alarming number of injuries they have sustained this season, the Dodgers have already cycled through a variety of identities, from a team without starting pitching to a team without a reliable bullpen to, most recently, a team without a consistent offense.
In their previous two games, the Dodgers scored a combined two runs, leading Roberts and some players to question the team’s collective approach at the plate.
Just a week earlier, the division race looked as if it could be over. The Padres entered a three-game series at Dodger Stadium as the hottest team this side of Milwaukee. The Padres had bolstered their lineup, rotation and top-ranked bullpen at the trade deadline while the Dodgers did almost nothing.
But their inconsistency on offense kept them from protecting the two-game lead they’d built. They inexplicably dropped two of four games against the last-place Colorado Rockies. By Saturday, after their second loss to the Padres in as many days, they were in second place.
Just as the Dodgers looked as if they could be written off, just as they looked as if they could relinquish control of the division to the Padres, they responded with a performance worthy of their $320-million payroll.
“Today was a game we couldn’t drop no matter what,” Yamamoto said in Japanese, “so I went into the game with more focus than usual.”
The hitters also went into the game with a heightened focus, resulting in more extended at-bats that gradually wore down the Padres’ pitchers. The Dodgers scored seven of their runs in the last four innings.
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The Dodgers don’t play the Padres again this season but Freeman said his team should be more concerned about their improvement rather than what its division rivals do.
Asked when he would start to scoreboard watch, Freeman replied, “Maybe in mid-September.”
Reminded only 31 games remain in the regular season, Freeman replied, “It is a sprint. I’ll be honest with you there. It’s a sprint now. You can’t worry about other teams if, like the last couple games, we don’t fix our offense, how our at-bats were going the last couple days. We fixed it today, we did better today. If you’re worrying about other things, that’s just not conducive, it’s not going to lead to quality things in the clubhouse. So maybe mid-September. When I turn 36, we’ll start scoreboard watching, all right?”
Freeman’s birthday is on Sept. 12. Will the Dodgers know who they are by then?
SAN DIEGO — The Dodgers finally landed a lot of little jabs as an offense Sunday against the San Diego Padres.
And in a pivotal, sweep-evading 8-2 win at Petco Park — which once again tied the two teams for first place in the National League West standings — it allowed their slumping lineup to deliver some badly needed knockout blows.
For the first time this weekend, the Dodgers looked like themselves at the plate.
They bashed four home runs, none bigger than a tie-breaking three-run shot from backup catcher Dalton Rushing in the seventh that ultimately decided the game.
They strung together seven hits and four walks, cracking a Padres pitching staff that had smothered them over the first two games in this rivalry’s final renewal of the season.
Most importantly, however, they did all the little things that have too often gone missing during their recent two-month funk; one in which they’ve ranked 24th in the majors in scoring since the start of July, and let what was once a nine-game lead in the division turn into a dogfight down the stretch.
They extended at-bats. Battled with two strikes. And, at long last, earned the kind of pitches their star-studded roster could wallop.
“For us to come out here and execute as an offense, way better than we did the last couple days, that’s a big boost for us,” said first baseman Freddie Freeman, who had two home runs to help the Dodgers salvage the series finale.
“When you expand the zone, the slugging percentage is going to go down, because pitchers are going to continue to expand,” manager Dave Roberts added. “But when you earn good counts and get good pitches, control the zone, then slug happens. You can’t always chase it. Which, I thought, today we did a really good job of.
Ahead of first pitch, Roberts spoke at length about the team’s recent offensive struggles — following up on his Saturday night critique of the club’s increasingly all-or-nothing approach.
“We haven’t really been in-sync,” Roberts said. “It’s been disjointed a lot, as far as the offense.”
Freddie Freeman, right, is congratulated by third base coach Dino Ebel after hitting a home run in the sixth inning Sunday.
(Derrick Tuskan / Associated Press)
When asked if that meant his team needed to adopt more of a small-ball mentality, however, Roberts pushed back.
“I think it’s a fair question,” he said. “But I couldn’t disagree more.”
After all, his team is still stocked full of All-Stars, MVPs and future Hall of Famers. At their core, they are built to bludgeon opponents — not slap singles and drop down sacrifice bunts.
“Slugging is still a part of it,” he said. “I definitely don’t want guys to hit like I did.”
Around the margins, though, there were ways Roberts felt the Dodgers (74-57) could better position themselves to do that. Like trying to work better counts, stay alive with two strikes, and striking a better balance between patience and aggression.
“I want my cake, and [to] eat it as well,” he quipped, a devilish smile on his face.
“I’d be shocked,” he added, “if we don’t see a different offensive output from here forward, starting today.”
The change started in the first inning, with the Dodgers putting Padres starter Nick Pivetta under immediate stress.
Shohei Ohtani drew a five-pitch leadoff walk. Mookie Betts shortened up his swing on an 0-and-2 slider to line a single up the middle. Freeman loaded the bases by grinding out a full-count free pass.
It was a string of small victories, that provided cleanup hitter Teoscar Hernández the perfect chance to slug.
Hernández tried to, getting a fastball over the plate in a 3-and-1 count and launching a deep fly ball that seemed destined to be a grand slam. The drive, however, hung up just enough for Ramón Laureano to rob it at the wall.
The sacrifice fly brought in the Dodgers’ only run of the inning — giving them a 1-0 lead that would soon be erased on Elias Díaz’s two-run homer in the third off Yoshinobu Yamamoto (the only runs he allowed in a six-inning start).
Dodgers starting pitcher Yoshinobu Yamamoto delivers against the Padres in the first inning Sunday.
(Sean M. Haffey / Getty Images)
Still, it set the tone for a flurry of offense that would follow, when a weekend of non-existent offense finally started to turn.
“Getting the guys on and scoring in that first inning was huge,” Freeman sad. “Even though we could have got more out of it, just getting one run across was a good boost for us coming off the last couple games.”
In the sixth, Freeman hit his first home run of the day, crushing another center-cut fastball from Pivetta to right-center for a tying blast.
Then, against Padres reliever Jeremiah Estrada in the seventh, the club put all the pieces together in a five-run rally.
Andy Pages rolled a single through the left side to lead off. Michael Conforto came up next, fouled off a full-count slider, then took a borderline fastball at the top of the zone for a stress-inducing walk.
Miguel Rojas couldn’t get a bunt down after that, eventually swinging away for a fly out to center.
But, in what was easily his best moment of a trying rookie season, Rushing connected on the fatal blow seven pitches later — resetting after a bad first strike call, fouling off his own two-strike slider to keep the at-bat alive, then clobbering another slider to right for his go-ahead three-run homer.
“When I’m in the box and I get put in a hole, it’s almost like, ‘All right, I’m going to find my way out,’” said Rushing, who entered the day batting just .184 with two home runs. “I kind of played the game with him. He threw every pitch that he had, and I was totally banking on just being able to put a good swing on the ball whatever he threw.”
“I think today,” Roberts added, “was a big step in the right direction for him.”
The same, of course, was true of the Dodgers’ entire offense — which also got a second homer from Freeman later in the seventh, then another when Ohtani belted his 45th homer of the season in the ninth.
They got back to doing the little things right. They reeled off one big swing after another as a result.
“Today was more indicative of what we’re going to do, we expect, going forward,” Roberts said. “The fight, the grind, taking what the pitcher is giving you — and then if there’s slug there, it’s there. Just the byproduct of good at-bats all day.”
SAN DIEGO — The San Diego Padres’ bullpen is considered one of the best in baseball. Their lineup, revamped by a couple of key trade deadline acquisitions, at least rivals the recently inconsistent version the Dodgers have gotten out of theirs.
But this weekend, with first place on the line in the teams’ final meeting this season, the Dodgers were supposed to have one distinct advantage.
Their starting rotation was healthy, fresh and lined up to throw three of its best arms at Petco Park.
The Padres, on the other hand, were banged up and starting three veterans with a collective earned-run average north of 5.00.
Yeah … so much for all that.
For the second-straight night on Saturday, in San Diego’s 5-1 win, a Padres starter unexpectedly dominated the Dodgers, while a Dodgers starter disappointingly stumbled in the fourth inning. This time, it was Nestor Cortes who was in cruise control, spinning six scoreless innings while retiring his first 16 batters. On the other side, it was Tyler Glasnow who ran into trouble, yielding three runs in the fourth to leave the Dodgers for dead.
Just like that, what was a two-game division lead for the Dodgers (73-57) at the start of this week, coming off their sweep of the Padres in Los Angeles last weekend, is a one-game advantage for San Diego in the National League West standings, with the Padres (74-56) primed to sweep the Dodgers right back.
A night after managing just one run and one hit off Yu Darvish on Friday (after he entered the game with an ERA close to 6.00), the Dodgers looked even more overmatched by the left-handed Cortes — who was out for redemption after giving up Freddie Freeman’s walk-off grand slam in the World Series while playing for the New York Yankees last season.
Since that fateful October night, Cortes has switched teams twice. In the offseason, he was dealt to the Milwaukee Brewers, where he made two early starts before suffering an elbow injury. At the deadline, he was one of seven players the Padres acquired to bolster their roster for the stretch run.
San Diego Padres starting pitcher Nestor Cortes delivers against the Dodgers in the third inning Saturday.
(Derrick Tuskan / Associated Press)
Cortes had offered minimal help in his first three Padres outings, giving up seven runs in 15 innings while averaging barely 90 mph with his fastball.
But on Saturday, he found a rhythm with his trademark cutter, throwing it more than any other pitch while recording at least one out with it in all six innings he pitched.
The Dodgers hardly threatened in the first, with Shohei Ohtani leading off with a strikeout and Mookie Betts rolling over a center-cut cutter to third base. In the second, Cortes won his rematch with Freeman; throwing a down-and-in fastball all so similar to the one that landed in the right-field pavilion of Dodger Stadium last year — only to turn and watch another deep drive die at the warning track, this time to straightaway center field at Petco Park.
From there, the outs kept coming.
In the sixth inning, Miguel Rojas finally broke up the no-no, adjusting to yet another cutter for a line-drive single to right.
But by then, Glasnow had already dug a hole too deep for the Dodgers’ slumping lineup to climb out of.
After retiring his first six batters, Glasnow started losing his command in the third. He issued a leadoff walk to Ramón Laureano, another to Fernando Tatis Jr., and only escaped the jam after a 10-pitch at-bat against Luis Arraez ended in a grounder.
In the fourth, the Padres wouldn’t come away empty-handed again.
Walks to Manny Machado (on four pitches to lead off the inning) and Xander Bogaerts (on a string of fastballs that missed the zone) were sandwiched around a single from Ryan O’Hearn. Then, with the bases loaded, Laureano lined a two-run single to right. Jake Cronenworth tacked on a sacrifice fly. And just like on Friday, the Dodgers stared down the deficit — and found no way to erase it.
Cortes stranded Rojas, with the inning ending on a fly out from Ohtani. After that, the Padres’ talent-rich bullpen kept things at an arm’s length, with a pinch-hit home run from Alex Freeland (his second in as many nights) representing the Dodgers’ only scoring for a second-straight night.
Dodgers starting pitcher Tyler Glasnow delivers against the Padres in the fifth inning Saturday.
(Sean M. Haffey / Getty Images)
To do some quick math so far this weekend…
The Padres’ two starters have combined for 12 innings, one run and two hits compared to the 12 innings and five runs the Dodgers’ rotation has allowed.
The Dodgers have totaled five hits, three walks and 14 strikeouts. The Padres have 10 hits, eight walks and only 10 Ks against Dodger pitching.
And, most critically, the Padres have two wins — putting them back alone in first place by one game, and on the verge of a sweep that (at least based on the pitching matchups) few would have seen coming.
SAN DIEGO — The home team was one strike from victory Friday night, when the Petco Park video board suddenly erupted in hues of pink and mint, flashing the preferred accompaniment to any game against the Dodgers: BEAT LA.
Then came the 102-mph fastball, then a swing and a miss, and the San Diego Padres had indeed beaten the Dodgers.
For Dodgers fans who thought the National League West had been won last weekend at Dodger Stadium, this just in from San Diego: The NL West is tied.
These were words in this publication just five days ago: “The Dodgers now lead the National League West by two games, but it feels like 20.”
The Dodgers had just swept the Padres, their only competition for the division title. The Dodgers were 8-2 against the Padres this season. There was a blue wave of emotion. The thing that happened last is the thing you remember best.
“It’s natural,” Dodgers manager Dave Roberts said. “That’s the great thing about fandom. People get excited. That’s a great thing about sports.”
The feeling in the clubhouse last weekend?
“In here? We played a great series, but there’s still a lot of baseball left to play,” Roberts said. “It wasn’t going to be won or lost then, and it’s not going to be won or lost this weekend.”
The trouble is not with the emotion. The trouble is with the schedule.
The number of games left after this weekend: 31. The number of Dodgers-Padres games left after this weekend: 0.
This is baseball’s best rivalry, with a division title and potential first-round playoff bye on the line. The Dodgers and Padres should be facing each other to wrap up the season, with all that emotion bursting forth.
Instead, the Dodgers finish the regular season against another traditional rival, the (checks notes) Seattle Mariners.
There has been plenty of emotion among the Dodgers and Padres fan bases already this year, mostly in the form of angst.
The Dodgers won the winter, and Padres fans wondered why their team was not keeping up with the competition.
The Padres won the trade deadline, and Dodgers fans wondered why their team was not keeping up with the competition.
For the Dodgers, the cliche is about to be put to a real-life test: Getting a player off the injured list is just like getting a player in a trade.
Reliever Tanner Scott was activated Friday. Reliever Kirby Yates could be activated as soon as Saturday.
On Friday, infielder Alex Freeland hit his first major league home run, but infielder Buddy Kennedy (.287 OPS) went hitless, and the Dodgers burned their backup catcher to bat for him. They trusted outfielder Justin Dean to pinch-run and play center field, but not to bat.
Alex Freeland celebrates after hitting a solo home run in the third inning of a 2-1 loss to the Padres on Friday.
(Sean M. Haffey / Getty Images)
“This is our club right now,” Roberts said. “We have guys coming back.”
On a hot August night, Petco Park was its usual lively self, with its usual sellout crowd, with Dodgers fans drowning out chants of “Let’s Go Padres” and Padres fans returning the favor at the sound of “Let’s Go Dodgers.”
Amid intensity fit for October, the Dodgers and Padres each let a strong starting pitcher — Blake Snell for L.A., Yu Darvish for San Diego — continue rather than reflexively remove him for the third time through the lineup.
How do you win in October, with pitchers like Snell and Darvish lined up?
Is it with the home run?
Only one major league team has more home runs than the Dodgers. The Dodgers scored their only run Friday on a home run.
Is it with small ball?
Only one major league team has fewer home runs than the Padres. The Padres scored both their runs in one inning Friday, with a rally that included three singles, a walk, a sacrifice bunt and a sacrifice fly.
The Padres dropped three sacrifice bunts Friday. They have 40 this season, the most in the majors. The Dodgers have eight, the fewest of any NL team.
Before the game, I spoke with Mason Miller, the former Athletics All-Star closer turned Padres eighth-inning setup man. To this point in his career, Miller said, the biggest game of his career has been closing the A’s final game in Oakland last September.
“I think I said it after that game: until I play in the playoffs, that will probably be my all-time baseball memory,” Miller said. “Now it doesn’t seem like I’ll have to wait that much longer to get that playoff taste.”
Not much longer at all. As of Friday morning, Baseball Prospectus put the Dodgers’ chance of making the playoffs at 99.8% and the Padres’ chance at 99.6%.
Maybe this weekend won’t mark the last Dodgers-Padres game this season. What we really want is the first NL Championship Series between the Dodgers and the Padres, with the winner advancing to the World Series: SoCal vs. the World.
Hi, and welcome to another edition of Dodgers Dugout. My name is Houston Mitchell. The Dodgers play an important series against the Padres this weekend. It seems like that just happened.
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Well, here we are again. The Dodgers vs. the Padres. Last time, the Padres had a one-game lead on the Dodgers. This time, the Dodgers have a one-game lead on the Padres after splitting the series against the Rockies, while the Padres won three of four against the Giants.
Last time, the games were at Dodger Stadium. This time, Petco Park. Expect Padres fans to be loud and waving towels in support of their team. How will the Dodgers respond?
These are also the final three times the teams play each other this regular season. The Dodgers are 8-2 against the Padres, so no matter what happens, the Dodgers will hold the tiebreaker if the two finish with the same record.
Watching the Dodgers sweep the Padres last weekend, then lose two to the lowly Rockies, brings up the question: How have the Dodgers fared against teams with winning and losing records this season? We did this just before the All-Star break, but let’s update it with a twist: How have the Padres done in those situations? Let’s look.
The Dodgers’ overall winning percentage is .570
Dodgers against winning teams (.500+) 29-28, .509
against losing teams 44-27, .620
How does that compare to the Padres?
The Padres’ overall winning percentage is .563
Padres against winning teams 33-34, .493
Padres against losing teams 39-22, .639
Last season, the Dodgers were 51-41 (.554) against winning teams and 47-23 (.671) against losing teams. They won 98 games. This season, they are on pace to win 92.
So, what is the schedule like the rest of the way for the two teams after this Sunday? Let’s take a look
Dodgers against winning teams vs. Cincinnati, 3 vs. Colorado, 3 vs. Philadelphia, 3 at Seattle, 3
against losing teams vs. Arizona, 3 at Arizona, 3 at Pittsburgh, 3 at Baltimore, 3 at San Francisco, 3 vs. San Francisco, 4
Padres against winning teams at Seattle, 3 vs. Cincinnati, 3 at NY Mets, 3 vs. Milwaukee, 3
against losing teams at Minnesota, 3 vs. Baltimore, 3 at Colorado, 3 vs. Colorado, 4 at Chicago White Sox, 3 vs. Arizona, 3
Both teams have 12 games left against teams that currently have a winning record and 19 against teams with a losing record. However, the Padres have 10 games left against the two worst teams in baseball, the Rockies and the White Sox. And the Dodgers have seven games with the Giants, who would love to play spoiler.
It’s going to be an interesting ride to the end of the season. Being a wild-card in the postseason is not fun, so the Dodgers need to avoid that.
That’s it?
You’ve gotten a lot of long newsletters the last couple of weeks, so we’ll keep this one short. Absence makes the heart grow fonder. A couple of things to clean up though: Buddy Kennedy was born in 1998, not 1988 (why do they put the 8 and 9 key right next to each other?). And Duke Snider hit 40+ homers in five consecutive seasons (because I can be dumb sometimes).
Up next
Friday: Dodgers (*Blake Snell, 3-1, 1.80 ERA) at San Diego (Yu Darvish, 2-3, 5.97 ERA), 6:40 p.m., Sportsnet LA, AM 570, KTNQ 1020
Saturday: Dodgers (Tyler Glasnow, 1-1, 3.12 ERA) at San Diego (*Nestor Cortes, 0-1, 4.20 ERA), 5:40 p.m., Sportsnet LA, AM 570, KTNQ 1020
Sunday: Dodgers (Yoshinobu Yamamoto, 10-8, 2.90 ERA) at San Diego (Nick Pivetta, 13-4, 2.81 ERA), 1:10 p.m., Sportsnet LA, AM 570, KTNQ 1020
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From Kevin Baxter: When the Dodgers arrived in Colorado on Sunday night they had a golden opportunity to pad their narrow division lead against with the worst team in the majors. Unfortunately, even with Thursday’s 9-5 win over the Rockies, the Dodgers only managed a split of the four-game series.
They now head to San Diego for a crucial three-game-series against the Padres with the division lead once again up for grabs.
“I wish we had won all four, but it just didn’t happen,” Dodgers manager Dave Roberts said. “That’s just the way baseball is. So we’ve got to go out there and regardless of the standings, we’ve got to beat those guys.”
The standings, however, loom large. The margin over the Padres is just a game.
The Dodgers will have a bit of momentum on their side after scoring 20 runs on 30 hits in the two wins at Coors Field. Thursday’s matinee saw four players finish with multiple hits, including third baseman Alex Freeland, who was a career-best three for five with a run scored and another driven in. Freeland had six hits in the final three games in Denver.
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From Ben Bolch: Demetrice Martin built an early, practically insurmountable lead.
Landing six defensive backs by Christmas, the UCLA secondary coach added two more before the spring transfer portal window closed, making this race appear to be a runaway.
Before long, a formidable challenger emerged. Closing fast in the battle to become the Bruins’ top recruiter on an almost entirely new coaching staff was Andy Kwon.
Having helped snag four transfers — a few of whom committed before his hiring — the offensive line coach went on to secure verbal commitments from two four-star high school prospects from Florida, the kind of highly coveted out-of-region talent that UCLA had seen go elsewhere in recent years.
The heated duel to see who could secure the best players, which included every new assistant and holdovers Ikaika Malloe and Jerry Neuheisel, was a welcome surprise to coach DeShaun Foster.
From Ryan Kartje: Rising star USC wideout Ja’Kobi Lane suffered a broken foot in May, but was fully cleared this week and will be ready for the Trojans’ season opener against Missouri State, coach Lincoln Riley said Thursday.
The foot injury kept Lane limited through most of the summer. By the start of preseason camp, he was still being brought along slowly. During the portion of USC’s practices open to reporters, Lane wasn’t even running routes on air.
Lane wasn’t deemed fully healthy until the final week of USC’s preseason camp. Riley said that the junior wideout had actually “progressed a little bit ahead of schedule.”
From Gary Klein: As Matthew Stafford got to the podium on Thursday, he joked that he was sure reporters wanted to ask him questions about the paper cut he suffered.
The Rams star quarterback then fielded inquiries about the subject that clouds all conversation about the Rams: The back injury that sidelined Stafford until this week.
Stafford practiced for the fourth day in a row, another small milestone for the 17th-year pro and a team aiming to make a Super Bowl run.
“The good thing is I feel pretty good,” said Stafford, who practiced for the fourth day in a row. “The last couple days out there practicing, I was able to do even more than I thought I was going to be able to do the first day, and then I’ve just been trying to stack days.
1851 — The United States wins the first international yacht race. The schooner named “America” beats 14 British yachts.
1885 — Richard Sears beats Godfrey M. Brinley, 6-3, 4-6, 6-0, 6-3 to win the U.S. men’s national tennis championship held at the Newport (R.I.) Casino.
1898 — Malcolm Whitman beats Dwight F. Davis, 3-6, 6-2, 6-2, 6-1 to win the U.S. men’s national tennis championship held at the Newport (R.I.) Casino.
1948 — The Chicago Cardinals beat the College All-Stars 28-0 in front 101,220 fans at Chicago’s Soldier Field.
1949 — The Philadelphia Eagles beat the College All-Stars 38-0 at Chicago’s Soldier Field. It’s the largest shutout in the series, later matched by Green Bay in 1966.
1950 — Althea Gibson becomes the first Black tennis player to be accepted in competition for the national championship.
1957 — Floyd Patterson knocks out Pete Rademacher in the sixth round to retain his world heavyweight title at Sicks Stadium in Seattle.
1984 — Evelyn Ashford sets the world record in the 100-meter dash with a clocking of 10.76 seconds in a meet at Zurich, Switzerland.
1987 — Brazil snaps the 34-game winning streak of the U.S. men’s basketball team with a 120-115 victory in the Pan Am Games. Oscar Schmidt scores 46 points to lead Brazil. Cuba wins a record 10 of 12 gold medals in boxing and beats the U.S. 13-9 in the baseball final.
1999 — Jenny Thompson breaks Mary T. Meagher’s 18-year-old 100-meter butterfly record at the Pan Pacific swim championships. Thompson with a time of 57.88 seconds lowers the mark of 57.93 set by Meagher.
2004 — American sprinter Justin Gatlin wins the coveted Olympic 100m gold medal in Athens in 9.85 ahead of Francis Obikwelu of Portugal & American Maurice Greene.
2008 — Usain Bolt helps Jamaica win the 400-meter relay final in 37.10 seconds for his third gold medal and third world record of the Beijing Games. Bolt becomes only the fourth man, and the first since Carl Lewis in 1984, to win all three Olympic sprint events. Bryan Clay wins the decathlon, the first American to win the 10-discipline event at the Olympics since Dan O’Brien at Atlanta in 1996.
2018 — Ohio State suspends football coach Urban Meyer three games for mishandling repeated professional and behavioral problems of an assistant coach, with investigators finding Meyer protected his protege for years through domestic violence allegations, a drug problem and poor job performance.
2018 — The NCAA ditches the RPI for its own evaluation tool to select teams for the NCAA Tournament. The NCAA Evaluation Tool will rely on game results, strength of schedule, game location, scoring margin, net offensive and defensive efficiency and quality of wins and losses. NET will be used for the 2018-19 season by the committee that selects schools and seeds the tournament.
THIS DAY IN BASEBALL HISTORY
1917 — Pittsburgh’s Carson Bigbee set a major league record — since tied — with 11 at-bats in a 22-inning game against Brooklyn. Pirate Elmer Jacobs pitched 16 2-3 innings in relief. The game was also the fourth consecutive extra-inning game by the Pirates for a total of 59 innings, a National League record.
1934 — Pitcher Wes Ferrell hit two home runs to give the Boston Red Sox a 3-2 triumph over the Chicago White Sox in 12 innings. Trailing 2-1, Ferrell hit a home run in the eighth inning to tie the score and with two out in the 12th, Ferrell connected again for the game-winner.
1961 — Roger Maris, en route to his 61-home run season, became the first player to hit his 50th homer in August. He connected off California pitcher Ken McBride in a 4-3 loss to the Angels.
1965 — In the third inning of a game against the Dodgers, pitcher Juan Marichal of the San Francisco Giants hit catcher John Roseboro of the Dodgers in the head with his bat. A 14-minute brawl ensued and Roseboro suffered cuts on the head. Marichal thought Roseboro threw too close to his head when returning the ball to Sandy Koufax.
1971 — The Oakland Athletics opened and closed the game with solo homers to beat the Boston Red Sox 2-1. Boston pitcher Sonny Siebert gave up both, Bert Campaneris lead off the game and Reggie Jackson ended it with two out in the ninth inning.
1984 — New York Mets right-hander Dwight Gooden, at 19, fanned nine San Diego Padres to become the 11th rookie to strike out 200 batters in one season.
1989 — Nolan Ryan of the Texas Rangers became the first pitcher to strike out 5,000 batters. Ryan struck out 13, walked two and allowed only five hits in a 2-0 loss to Oakland. Ryan began the night needing six strikeouts and fanned Rickey Henderson swinging, leading off the fifth inning, for the record.
1999 — Mark McGwire became the first player to hit 50 homers in four consecutive seasons, hitting Nos. 49 and 50 in the first game of a doubleheader against the New York Mets.
2007 — The Texas Rangers became the first team in 110 years to score 30 runs in a game, setting an American League record in a 30-3 rout of the Baltimore Orioles in the first game of a doubleheader. It was the ninth time a major league team scored 30 runs, the first since the Chicago Colts set the major league mark in a 36-7 rout of Louisville in a National League game on June 28, 1897.
2012 — Oakland A’s P Bartolo Colon is suspended for 50 games for testing positive for testosterone, eight days after Giants OF Melky Cabrera was also suspended for using the same performance-enhancing substance.
2016 — Adrian Gonzalez hit three of the Dodgers’ seven homers — driving in a career-high eight runs — to lead Los Angeles to an 18-9 win over the Cincinnati Reds.
2021 — Miguel Cabrera of the Detroit Tigers becomes the 28th player to hit 500 home runs with a solo home run off of Steven Matz of the Blue Jays.
Compiled by the Associated Press
Until next time…
That concludes today’s newsletter. If you have any feedback, ideas for improvement or things you’d like to see, email me at [email protected]. To get this newsletter in your inbox, click here.
From Jack Harris: It was a sight that’s been all too rare this season, coming precisely when the Dodgers needed it most.
Mookie Betts, bat in hand, game on the line. A swing as smooth as it was strong, his two-handed finish sending the ball out of sight.
For so much of this year, the Dodgers have been picking Betts up amid a career-worst season at the plate.
On Sunday afternoon, with a rivalry game and division lead hanging in the balance, he returned the favor with his biggest moment in what felt like ages.
After once leading by four, then watching the San Diego Padres claw back to tie the score, the Dodgers completed a weekend series sweep on Betts’ go-ahead home run in the eighth.
The no-doubt, 394-foot, stadium-shaking blast sent the Dodgers to a 5-4 win and gave them a two-game lead in the National League West; and had Betts skipping around the bases with a swagger that has been missing for much of the campaign.
“It’s been a long time,” Betts said — since he had delivered such a clutch hit, looked so much like his old self at the dish, and trusted a swing that has frustrated him since the earliest days of the season.
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ANGELS
Jo Adell hit a three-run homer in the first inning and kicked off a six-run tenth with an RBI single as the Angels beat the Athletics 11-5 on Sunday to avoid a three-game sweep.
Kenley Jansen (5-2) struck out two in a scoreless ninth to give him 1,268 for his career, the fourth-most strikeouts by a reliever in major league history.
In the 10th, automatic runner Mike Trout advanced to third on a passed ball, Taylor Ward walked and Adell lined a single to center against Michael Kelly (2-2) to make it 6-5. Christian Moore drove in his third run of the game with a grounder and Luis Rengifo followed with a two-run triple off Ben Bowden. Bryce Tedosio added a sacrifice fly and Zach Neto capped the scoring with a 436-foot homer to left-center, his 21st.
From Ben Bolch: There were some breakdowns before UCLA broke training camp.
Don’t worry, these were the poignant, bring-everyone-together kind.
As part of coach DeShaun Foster’s efforts to connect a team featuring 55 new players and eight new assistant coaches, everyone participated in a series of brotherhood meetings over the last two weeks at the team hotel in Costa Mesa.
Coaches stood before the entire team, sharing anecdotes about their experiences in the game. Players told their stories in more intimate position-group settings run by a coach from a different position.
“A lot of tears,” Foster said Saturday before his team’s final camp session. “So I just like that the players were being vulnerable and letting their guard down because they saw the coaches do it. So, you know, I just think that really brought us together and we’re gonna see if it worked.”
From Ira Gorawara: Kristen Nuss was covered in sand, dulling her neon two-piece swimsuit. A white lei hung around her neck as she attempted to balance her champion’s plaque awkwardly in one hand.
“This thing is heavy,” she said, “my arm is getting sore.”
Despite her and partner Taryn Brasher repeating as AVP Manhattan Beach Open champions — grinding out a 15-21, 21-18, 15-13 victory over former USC standouts Megan Kraft and Terese Cannon — on Sunday, the weight of both the hardware and the title wasn’t lost on Nuss.
“This is Wimbledon,” Nuss said. “It’s the granddaddy of them all. My mom always said she wanted me to play at Wimbledon. … This is definitely one of the most coveted trophies right here.”
From Jad El Reda: Her name was etched in the memory of millions thanks to her role as Gabrielle Solís in “Desperate Housewives,” a series that established Eva Longoria as one of the most influential Latina actresses in Hollywood.
She went on to become a producer, director, entrepreneur, activist and, in recent years, an investor in the world of sports, where she has earned the nickname “La Patrona” — or “The Boss” in English — which easily could be the title of a Mexican soap opera.
After more than two decades of credits and awards earned in the entertainment industry, Longoria has shifted her focus. Today, her role as “La Patrona” of Liga MX team Club Necaxa draws on her family’s roots, her passion for storytelling and her commitment to giving Mexico visibility in the world.
Her involvement was not limited to serving on Necaxa’s board of directors as a celebrity investor. From the beginning, she knew she wanted to tell a story. Inspired by Rob McElhenney and Ryan Reynolds’ “Welcome to Wrexham” docuseries, she decided to produce the the docuseries “Necaxa,” which premiered on Aug. 7 on FX. Cameras take viewers behind the scenes, follow along on road trips and offer an intimate look at the soccer team.
Few could have imagined a Mexican American actress would become the leading front office voice for a historic Mexican soccer club, whose home stadium — Estadio Victoria — is located in the city of Aguascalientes in north-central Mexico.
Sonia Citron tied her career high with five three-pointers and finished with 24 points, Kiki Iriafen added 18 points and 10 rebounds and the Washington Mystics beat the Sparks 95-86 on Sunday.
Iriafen has 12 double-doubles this season and set a franchise rookie record for most games (six) with at least 15 points and 10-plus rebounds.
Shakira Austin had 14 points and Jade Melbourne, who fouled out with less than two minutes left, scored 11 for Washington (16-18).
1923 — Helen Mills, 17, ends Molla Bjurstedt Mallory’s domination of the U.S. Lawn Tennis Association championships and starts her own with a 6-2, 6-1 victory.
1958 — Floyd Patterson knocks out Roy Harris in the 13th round at Wrigley Field in Los Angeles to retain his world heavyweight title.
1964 — The International Olympic Committee bans South Africa from competing in the Summer Olympics because of its apartheid policies.
1994 — South Africa is introduced for the first time in 36 years during the opening ceremonies of the 15th Commonwealth Games held in Victoria, British Columbia. South Africa had been banned from the Games since 1958 because of its apartheid policies.
1995 — Thirteen-year-old Dominique Moceanu becomes the youngest to win the National Gymnastics Championships senior women’s all-around title in New Orleans.
2004 — Paul Hamm wins the men’s gymnastics all-around Olympic gold medal by the closest margin ever in the event. Controversy follows after it was discovered a scoring error that may have cost Yang Tae-young of South Korea the men’s all-around title. Yang, who finished with a bronze, is wrongly docked a tenth of a point on his second-to-last routine, the parallel bars. He finishes third, 0.049 points behind Hamm, who becomes the first American man to win gymnastics’ biggest prize.
2008 — A day after winning an Olympic gold medal in Beijing, Rafael Nadal officially unseats Roger Federer to become the world’s No. 1 tennis player when the ATP rankings are released. Federer had been atop the rankings for 235 weeks.
2013 — For the first time in Solheim Cup history, the Europeans leave America with the trophy. Caroline Hedwall becomes the first player in the 23-year history of the event to win all five matches. She finishes with a 1-up victory over Michelle Wie and gives Europe the 14 points it needed to retain the cup.
2013 — Usain Bolt is perfect again with three gold medals. The Jamaican great becomes the most successful athlete in the 30-year history of the world championships. The 4×100-meter relay gold erases the memories of the 100 title he missed out on in South Korea two years ago because of a false start. Bolt, who already won the 100 and 200 meters, gets his second such sprint triple at the world championships, matching the two he achieved at the Olympics.
2016 — Jamaica’s Usain Bolt completes an unprecedented third consecutive sweep of the 100 and 200-meter sprints, elevating his status as the most decorated male sprinter in Olympic history. He wins the 200-meter race with a time of 19.78 seconds to defeat Andre de Grasse of Canada. American Ashton Eaton defends his Olympic decathlon title, equaling the games record with a surge on the last lap of the 1,500 meters — the last event in the two-day competition. Helen Maroulis defeats Japan’s Saori Yoshida 4-1 in the 53-kilogram freestyle final to win the first-ever gold medal for a United States women’s wrestler.
2018 — Accelerate cruises to a record 12 1/2-length victory in the $1-million Pacific Classic at Del Mar, becoming just the third horse to sweep all three of Southern California’s major races for older horses in the same year.
THIS DAY IN BASEBALL HISTORY
1915 — Boston opened Braves Field with a 3-1 victory over the St. Louis Cardinals.
1931 — New York’s Lou Gehrig played in his 1,000th consecutive game. Gehrig went hitless in the 5-4 loss to Detroit.
1948 — Brooklyn’s Rex Barney pitched a one-hitter for a 1-0 win over Robin Roberts and the Philadelphia Phillies at Shibe Park.
1956 — The Cincinnati Reds hit eight home runs and the Milwaukee Braves added two to set a National League record for home runs by two clubs in a nine-inning night game. Bob Thurman’s three homers and double led the Reds in the 13-4 rout.
1960 — Lew Burdette of the Milwaukee Braves pitched a no-hitter, beating the Philadelphia Phillies 1-0. Burdette faced the minimum 27 batters.
1965 — Hank Aaron of Milwaukee hit Curt Simmons’ pitch on top of the pavilion roof at Sportsman’s Park in St. Louis for an apparent home run. However, umpire Chris Pelekoudas called him out for being out of the batter’s box when he connected. Nevertheless, the Braves won the game 5-3.
1967 — California’s Jack Hamilton hit Tony Conigliaro on his left cheekbone with a fastball in the fourth inning of a 3-2 loss to Boston. Conigliaro was carried unconscious from the field and missed the remainder of the 1967 season and the entire 1968 season. The 22-year-old already had more than 100 home runs.
1977 — Don Sutton of the Dodgers pitched his fifth one-hitter to tie the National League record. Sutton gave up a two-out single in the eighth inning to San Francisco’s Marc Hill. The Dodgers won 7-0.
1995 — Tom Henke became the seventh pitcher to reach 300 career saves, surviving a rally by the Atlanta Braves in the ninth inning of the St. Louis Cardinals’ 4-3 victory.
2000 — Darin Erstad of the Angels made a spectacular, game-saving catch in the 10th inning and followed it with a homer in the 11th as the Angels defeated the New York Yankees 9-8.
2006 — Alfonso Soriano became the third player in major league history to have at least four seasons of 30 homers and 30 stolen bases, and the Washington Nationals beat the Philadelphia Phillies 6-4.
2007 — Micah Owings went 4-for-5, including a pair of mammoth homers, drove in six runs and scored four times while pitching three-hit ball through seven innings as the Arizona Diamondbacks beat the Atlanta Braves 12-6.
2011 — Mike Jacobs became the first player suspended by Major League Baseball for a positive HGH test under the sport’s minor league drug testing procedures. The 30-year-old minor league first baseman, who was in the big leagues from 2005-10, received a 50-game suspension for taking the banned performance-enhancing substance and was subsequently released by the Colorado Rockies.
2017 — Manny Machado capped a three-homer night with a grand slam in the bottom of the ninth inning, and the Baltimore Orioles rallied past the Angels 9-7 in a game that featured 10 home runs.
2018 — New York Mets ace Jacob deGrom pitched his first complete game of the season and lowered his major league-leading ERA to 1.71 with a 3-1 win over the Philadelphia Phillies.
2019 — Zack Grenke records the 200th win of his career as the Astros defeat the Athletics 4-1.
2021 — Shohei Ohtani continues to do it all by himself on the field. Today, he becomes the first hitter in the majors to reach 40 homers this season, and also improves his record on the mound to 8-1 as he pitches 8 full innings for the first time of his career. The Angels defeat the Tigers, 3-1.
2021 — Atlanta Braves first baseman Freddie Freeman hit for the cycle for the second time in his career as they beat the Miami Marlins 11-9.
Compiled by the Associated Press
Until next time…
That concludes today’s newsletter. If you have any feedback, ideas for improvement or things you’d like to see, email me at [email protected]. To get this newsletter in your inbox, click here.
It was a sight that’s been all too rare this season, coming precisely when the Dodgers needed it most.
Mookie Betts, bat in hand, game on the line. A swing as smooth as it was strong, his two-handed finish sending the ball out of sight.
For so much of this year, the Dodgers have been picking Betts up amid a career-worst season at the plate.
On Sunday afternoon, with a rivalry game and division lead hanging in the balance, he returned the favor with his biggest moment in what felt like ages.
After once leading by four, then watching the San Diego Padres claw back to tie the score, the Dodgers completed a weekend series sweep on Betts’ go-ahead home run in the eighth.
The no-doubt, 394-foot, stadium-shaking blast sent the Dodgers to a 5-4 win and gave them a two-game lead in the National League West; and had Betts skipping around the bases with a swagger that has been missing for much of the campaign.
“It’s been a long time,” Betts said — since he had delivered such a clutch hit, looked so much like his old self at the dish, and trusted a swing that has frustrated him since the earliest days of the season.
“Finally, I did something good for the boys that’s with the bat. I feel like I’ve done a decent job with the glove. But the bat, I haven’t really been able to help much. So just good to help with that.”
Mookie Betts hits a solo home run for the Dodgers in eighth inning Sunday against the Padres.
As Betts came to the plate in the eighth, Dodger Stadium stood still in a silent, tense trance.
In the first inning, the team had ambushed Padres starter Yu Darvish for four runs on long balls from Freddie Freeman and Andy Pages.
But from there, a crowd of 49,189 watched the Padres slowly come back.
Tyler Glasnow fizzled after two electric opening innings, leaving the game at the end of the fifth after allowing two runs.
A patchwork Dodgers bullpen couldn’t hold off the Padres, giving up runs in the top of the sixth and eighth to make it a 4-4 game.
At that point, San Diego had the advantage. Their league-best bullpen was fresh. Their closer, Robert Suarez, was on the mound. And the Dodgers were almost completely out of pitching options, having burned five relievers to get the previous nine outs.
But then, Betts delivered. In a 2-and-0 count against Suarez, he launched a center-cut fastball deep into the left-field stands.
“To get into a good count and turn that fastball around, that’s the Mookie we like,” manager Dave Roberts said.
“He was able to stay through it, back-spin the ball, hit it over the fence in a big situation,” Freeman echoed. “Been saying it the last few weeks. Mookie Betts is gonna be Mookie Betts. No one here is worried about him.”
That might have been true of his teammates. But for much of the summer, Betts seemed to be battling constant self-doubt.
His swing never felt right, off from the start after a late-spring stomach virus that zapped him of almost 20 pounds. His typical production never materialized, with a lack of power or consistent on-base ability contributing to distant career-lows in batting average (.242), OPS (.683) and home runs (he is on pace for only 17).
“I don’t know how to get through this,” Betts said last month. “I’m working every day. Hopefully it turns.”
When mechanical tweaks and long-trusted swing cues didn’t fix the issue, Betts recently decided to adopt a new mindset.
At the behest of Roberts, and the encouragement of his wife Brianna, Betts began this month by reframing his perspective.
“We’re going to have to chalk [this] up [as] not a great season,” Betts said two weeks ago, at least as far as his overall numbers were concerned. “But I can go out and help the boys win every night. Get an RBI. Make a play. Do something. I’m going to have to shift my focus there.”
Of late, the shift seemed to be working.
From Aug. 5-13, he went 14 for 35 over an eight-game hitting streak with seven RBIs, three extra-base hits and only two strikeouts.
This weekend had been more of a struggle, with Betts going hitless in his first nine at-bats.
But when he came up in the eighth, he had mental clarity. He wasn’t worried about his numbers, or a statline long past saving.
“Just trying to do something productive,” he said. “It definitely helps to not carry burdens from previous at-bats.”
Mookie Betts runs the bases after hitting a solo home run in the eighth inning for the Dodgers against the Padres on Sunday.
(Carlin Stiehl / Los Angeles Times)
As the ball sailed out, landing in a left-field pavilion of rollicking fans, Betts practically floated around the bases, giving a two-handed wave to the bullpen, the team’s Shohei Ohtani-inspired finger swoosh to the dugout, and a couple emphatic salutes to both teammates and the crowd.
“To take the pressure off — trying to recover from the season and get more micro, just game to game, at-bat to at-bat — it’s a better quality of life,” Roberts said. “Certainly, we’re seeing the performance from Mookie.”
And as a result, the Dodgers (71-53) had a triumphant ending to their pivotal rivalry series sweep of the Padres (69-55), going from second place Friday to all alone in first again.
“We just played a good brand of baseball this weekend,” Betts said. “But again, we still got a long way to go.”
Long before the dramatic ending, Sunday had started like the previous two games. The Dodgers were getting good pitching, with Glasnow striking out four of his first five batters while pumping increased fastball velocity and generating foolish swings with his slider. The Padres were making mistakes; most notably, Freddy Fermín getting gunned down by Pages from center while trying to leg out a double in the top of the third, turning what could have been a crooked-number rally into only a one-run inning.
Darvish, meanwhile, made a pair of two-strike mistakes in the first, leaving a fastball up to Freeman for a three-run homer before failing to bury a splitter to Pages for a solo shot.
It all seemed to give the Dodgers full control of the series finale.
In the top of the fifth, however, things began to shift.
Dodgers starting pitcher Tyler Glasnow delivers in the first inning against the Padres on Sunday.
(Carlin Stiehl / Los Angeles Times)
First, Ramón Laureano lifted a solo drive just over the wall in right to lead off the inning. And though Glasnow got out of a jam later in the inning, his fading command and rising 91-throw pitch count prompted Roberts to go to the bullpen with still 12 outs to go.
In the sixth, Anthony Banda gave up one run on a pair of doubles (the second one, a floating fly ball into the right-field corner from Ryan O’Hearn that slow-footed Teoscar Hernández couldn’t track down).
And though Blake Treinen stranded a runner at third in the seventh — thanks in no small part to a generous strike call against Manny Machado that negated a walk — more trouble arose in the eighth, after Alexis Díaz started by hitting a batter and giving up a double to Laureano on a line drive to center.
“Man, fought our tail off to come back,” Padres manager Mike Shildt said. “Could have easily said, you know what, it’s not our day again, down four.”
Tying the game, however, was as close as the Padres would get.
Facing the two-on, one-out jam, Roberts summoned Alex Vesia to try and get out of the inning. The left-hander retired both batters he faced, with only a ground ball from Jose Iglesias managing to level the score.
Dodgers reliever Alex Vesia, right, celebrates with catcher Will Smith after the Dodgers’ 5-4 win over the Padres at Dodger Stadium on Sunday.
(Carlin Stiehl / Los Angeles Times)
When Vesia returned to the dugout, Roberts phoned to the bullpen, instructing Justin Wrobleski to get loose with the game veering toward extras.
Vesia, however, had a different plan in mind.
“They told me I was done. And I was just like, ‘No,’” Vesia declared. “So I told Doc, I walked up to him and said, ‘Hey, if we’re up [in the ninth], I want it.’ He was like, ‘OK, you got it.’ Sure enough, Mook, bang, homers. Sweet, let’s go.”
Indeed, just when it seemed like all the momentum the Dodgers had built this weekend was suddenly fading, and the series would end with them only tied atop the standings, Betts instead flipped the script with his moment of salvation. Then Vesia returned to the mound for a clean ninth inning — punctuated by a strikeout of Machado that left him one for 11 in the series.
“To really weather the last couple innings, and to get that big hit off a really good closer was big,” Roberts said. “Yeah, feel a lot better today than a week ago.”
The San Diego Padres’ performance on Saturday could probably be put in a tutorial video.
Suggested title: How NOT to play a baseball game.
On a night the surging Padres were trying to bounce back from the Dodgers’ opening win in this weekend’s pivotal three-game series, one that tied the two Southern California rivals atop the National League West standings, the club instead put on an exhibition of poor, sloppy and outright comical execution.
While the once-slumping Dodgers have raised their level of play the last two nights, the Padres have made mistakes even Little League coaches would be reprimanding.
Except in their case, even the coaching appeared to be part of the problem.
In the Dodgers’ 6-0 win — a victory that restored their solo lead in the division, and clinched their head-to-head season series against the Padres in case of a tiebreaker at the end of the year — San Diego did all it could to give the game away from the start.
In the top of the first, three of the Padres’ first four batters recorded a hit against Blake Snell, the ex-Padre left-hander making his first start against the team since leaving in free agency at the end of 2023. But twice, Dodgers catcher Will Smith caught a runner trying to steal second, gunning down Fernando Tatis Jr. after his leadoff single before getting Manny Machado on the back end of an attempted double-steal to retire the side.
“We had a plan,” Padres manager Mike Shildt said. “And they made some plays.”
Lo and behold, the plan backfired again in the second, with Smith throwing out yet another runner, Xander Bogaerts, with yet another strike to second.
“Through two innings,” Snell joked, “he had three outs and I had three outs.”
Dodgers pitcher Blake Snell delivers against the Padres at Dodger Stadium on Saturday.
(Gina Ferazzi / Los Angeles Times)
It was the Dodgers’ first game with three caught stealings since 2021, and it made Smith the first Dodgers catcher with three individually since Russell Martin in 2010.
“Obviously we feel that Will is the best catcher in baseball in totality,” manager Dave Roberts said. “Tonight, he showed it with his arm.”
And, just as importantly, Roberts quickly added: “Essentially, they played 24 outs.”
Somehow, the Padres’ pitching and defense found a way to be even worse.
Starting pitcher Dylan Cease began his outing with three-straight walks in the bottom of the first, spraying the ball around the plate while visibly frustrated.
After a one-out sacrifice fly from Teoscar Hernández, Cease reloaded the bases with another free pass to Andy Pages, and followed that with a hanging curveball to Michael Conforto in a 3-and-0 count that had run full. Conforto was ready for it, ripping a two-run single into right. Seven batters in, the Dodgers had a 3-0 lead.
“Definitely you don’t want to help him out in that situation,” Conforto said. “But he fell behind 3-0, and came back into the zone, and showed that he was going to throw strikes. He wasn’t going to put me on. So, being ready to hit 3-1, and then being ready to hit 3-2, was obviously the plan.”
Dodgers second base Miguel Rojas tags out San Diego Padres shortstop Xander Bogaerts on a stolen-base attempt in the second inning. Catcher Will Smith threw out three Padres baserunners Saturday.
(Gina Ferazzi / Los Angeles Times)
Walks continued to abound in the second, with Cease putting Shohei Ohtani and Smith aboard to create more traffic. This time, the right-hander had appeared to work his way out of it, after Freddie Freeman hit a deep fly ball that died at the warning track in right-center. But on this night, even routine outs were no sure thing.
Sensing Tatis converging from right field, center fielder Jackson Merrill briefly hesitated while pursuing the drive, before awkwardly reaching for it with an underhanded attempt. Predictably, he couldn’t hold on, the ball hitting the heel of his mitt before falling to the ground for a two-run error.
The Dodgers, who went on to get six shutout innings from Snell and a second home run in as many nights from Hernández, would never be threatened again.
“It’s certainly good to be on the other side of things,” Roberts said, after his club had for so long had been the one shooting itself in the foot. “We’ve caught some breaks … but for us to take advantage of them is huge.”
Dodgers star Shohei Ohtani scores on a sacrifice fly in the first inning Saturday against the Padres.
(Gina Ferazzi / Los Angeles Times)
To recap the first two innings one more time:
The Dodgers (70-53) had just one hit, and saw their starting pitcher retire only one of the first five batters he faced — but drew six walks, were gifted a dropped ball and somehow led 5-0.
The Padres (69-54) had four hits — but apparently forgot how to throw up a stop sign, committed the costliest of imaginable errors defensively, and watched their starting pitcher throw 31 balls to only 27 strikes.
That, kids, is decidedly not how it’s done.
“It just got out of hand a little early,” Bogaerts said. “Obviously a little, couple of mistakes.”
Not that the Dodgers seemed all too much to mind.
Over the last couple months, as Roberts eluded to, they had been the team on the wrong end of sloppy fundamentals. What was once a nine-game division lead evaporated in the space of six weeks, thanks to un-clutch offense, unreliable relief pitching and one maddening close loss after another.
But in Friday’s series opener, they had finally played clean baseball, and even more importantly, grinded out a one-run win.
“If you win the close games, that’s how you build,” Freeman theorized last week. “Then you’ll score nine, 10 runs. Then you’ll start putting some things together. But just need to find a way to win those close ones.”
So far in this series, that prediction has come true.
Not that he, or anyone else with the Dodgers, could have expected the Padres to offer so much self-destructive help.
“I’m just happy that we’re playing better baseball,” Roberts said. “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 gotta kind of play good baseball. … So this is a good time to go for the jugular [with a potential series sweep Sunday].”
Lately, the only thing the Dodgers excel at is losing games they should win. When they hit they can’t pitch and when they pitch they can’t hit. They can’t move runners over or get a clutch hit and, of course, the relievers still can’t throw strikes. It all adds up to a good year … for the Padres.
Alan Abajian Alta Loma
To paraphrase the old adage, you can put lipstick on the Dodgers — for example, so and so is coming back … or recovering.
But any team that has played as inconsistently as they have at the plate, in the field, and on the pitcher’s mound is very unlikely to survive in multiple playoff short series. It’s virtually certain that type of team will get tripped up along the way. Especially one predicted to win 120 games.
Kip Dellinger Santa Monica
Mr. Plaschke is saying that the Dodgers’ failure to trade for bullpen help is the problem with the bullpen. Maybe he should point the finger at the guy (mis)using them.
John Vitz Manhattan Beach
Re: Bill Plaschke’s column on Dodgers at trade deadline — The Dodgers didn’t have an “inability” to improve their bullpen, it was an “unwillingness.” With the talent in their system, the Dodgers could have easily put together a package to get Mason Miller, David Bednar or similar. Impossible to know if there was any meaningful undisclosed trade talk to get better bullpen help, but it sure looks like the Dodgers simply decided not to do it. It also looks like it could be a big mistake.
John Merryman Redondo Beach
Truth be told, the story was about the incredible Angel comeback/sweep of the Dodgers. Once again the columnist focuses on the Dodgers’ injuries instead of the Angels’ mind-blowing bottom of the ninth rally. Will the “Summer Bummer” continue when the Padres invade Dodger Stadium?
Patrick Kelley Los Angeles
Who ARE these people and what have they done with our Dodgers?
When the Dodgers are reeling and roiling and losing their grip on a long hot summer, who is the one player who can stop the fall and calm the nerves and, oh yeah, kick some San Diego Padre butt?
Still, still, still, Clayton Kershaw.
He’s 37 with a battered 18-season body and a fastball the speed of a Zamboni and yet there he was Friday night, carrying an entire worried Dodger nation on his weary shoulders into the opener of a three-game series against the cocky rivals who had just stolen first place.
“We had the right guy on the mound tonight, I think we all know that,” said manager Dave Roberts, smiling for what seemed like the first time in a week. “What he did for us tonight, not only just the compete, but the stuff … getting us through six innings was huge, setting us up for the rest of the series … Clayton set the tone … big, big outing by him.”
It was a blast from the past, only it’s been happening in the present, Kershaw behaving like the staff’s second-best starter, improving his record to 7-2 while lowering his ERA to 3.01 and, as crazy as this once sounded, making an early case for inclusion in the postseason rotation.
“It was a good night,” Kershaw said.
Understated as usual. For all this game meant, it was a great night.
Since July 4 the Dodgers had been worse than even the Colorado Rockies, with a 12-21 record while losing 10 games in the standings to the Padres in a span of 40 days, surrendering first place just two days ago, and set to play the Padres six times in the next two weeks.
They desperately needed somebody to stop the bleeding. And before the game, Roberts claimed that Kershaw was “the perfect guy” to do it.
Perfect prediction. Almost perfect performance.
There was Kershaw, spinning and steering and surfing the ball past the Padre bats with apparent ease, his only mistake a hanging curve that Ramón Laureano hit 400 feet.
There was Kershaw, deftly making plays from the mound, demonstrably pleading for every close strike call, proudly stalking from the mound into a dugout filled with hugs and high-fives.
And there was Kershaw, after his maligned bullpen danced through danger and barely survived, admitting that maybe this game meant a little more.
“When you play everyday, things can spiral pretty quick,” he said. “So maybe just coming home, having an off day to reset, and playing good games … it just takes one to get going. Hopefully this was it tonight for us.”
Before the game, Roberts acknowledged that the Dodgers just play harder, and with more urgency, when Kershaw is pitching.
“He had a way of elevating people’s focus and play,” Roberts said.
Dodgers pitcher Clayton Kershaw turns to walk back to the dugout after the Dodgers completed a double play against the Padres in the sixth inning Friday.
(Gina Ferazzi / Los Angeles Times)
Sure enough, a team that had seemingly forgotten to do the little things did every little thing, from great defensive plays at the corners from Alex Freeland and Freddie Freeman to the eighth-inning sweeper from Blake Treinen that fooled Manny Machado into stranding two runners with a popout.
This is a team that devoutly follows Kershaw … when they’re not sitting back and admiring him.
“He’s built for these big moments,” said Teoscar Hernández, whose seventh inning homer eventually proved to be the difference. “He is a legend.”
Kershaw was at his best when the Dodgers’ best was needed, and in doing so he brought sanity back to the National League West and old-fashioned hardball back to a series that had become cheap and unseemly.
In these two teams’ seven previous meetings this season, the Padres Fernando Tatis Jr. was hit three times, Shohei Ohtani was hit twice, and Roberts and Padres manager Mike Shildt engaged in a brief shoving and shouting match.
The stage was set for more bad blood, but Kershaw, who entered with a career 23-11 record and 2.19 ERA against the Padres, quickly put an end to that. He retired the Padres on a three-up-three-down first inning and efficiently dominated them from there.
“It’s a game in August, obviously, it’s not that huge a deal,” Kershaw said. “But the way we were going, it felt like a big game for us and, thankful that we got a win.”
The only possible controversy emerged when Kershaw was removed from the game after just 76 pitches, surprising fans who didn’t have time to give him the proper standing ovation while leaving the game in the shaky hands of the bullpen.
Get used to it. The Dodgers are smartly going to protect the midseason Kershaw in hopes of maximizing the October Kershaw.
“I just think we’ve got to take care of him,” Roberts said. “For Clayton to give us six strong innings of one-run baseball, he did his job, there was no reason to push him more.”
Before the game, Roberts was asked if his struggling team held a players-only meeting. He said that, no, the transparent results of the next week would be the equivalent of any meeting.
“I don’t like to be embarrassed, I don’t think our players do, so this series I’m expecting high intensity and high performance,” Roberts said. “I think in itself, the schedule over the next week, will suffice in lieu of a meeting.”
In an opener that pulled the two teams into a first-place tie, the early results were clear.
On a night the Dodgers had a stadium-wide giveaway promotion for the anime show “Demon Slayer,” the club slayed a few recently troublesome demons of its own.
In the opening game of this season’s biggest series to date, they finally found a way not to trip over themselves.
By beating the San Diego Padres 3-2 at Dodger Stadium, the club moved back into a tie with the Padres for first place in the National League West.
They got six strong innings from Clayton Kershaw; plus, in a refreshing change of pace, plenty of crisp, clean defense behind him.
And though a lineup that lost Max Muncy to the injured list with an oblique strain before the game was largely contained by the Padres (who had to go with a bullpen game after scheduled starter Michael King was shelved with a shoulder injury), the Dodgers still managed to break their four-game losing streak thanks to their biggest weakness of late.
For the first time in what felt like several weeks, a scuffling bullpen finally didn’t cough up a late, narrow lead.
The Dodgers (69-53) came into this weekend’s rivalry series reeling in a way that once seemed impossible for this year’s $400-million team.
Since July 4, they were just 12-21. What had been a nine-game division lead then was transformed into a one-game deficit to the Padres, who came to Los Angeles riding high thanks to a monster trade deadline and a recent 14-3 streak.
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More dark clouds formed a few hours before first pitch when Muncy (who missed Wednesday’s game with side soreness) was placed on the injured list with a Grade 1 oblique strain, sidelining him for at least the next several weeks.
And though the Dodgers had taken five of seven games from the Padres (69-53) earlier this season, they suddenly felt more like an underdog now, searching for answers to their recently inconsistent offense, unsound fundamentals and untrustworthy bullpen (which had squandered five games in the past two weeks).
“I don’t like to be embarrassed. I don’t think our players do [either],” manager Dave Roberts said before the game. “So this series, I’m expecting high intensity and high performance.”
The Dodgers delivered on both.
Kershaw set the tone, displaying a vintage demeanor even with his ever-diminished stuff. Before the game, he marched through the clubhouse and hunched over his locker, leafing through a scouting report while teammates carefully tip-toed around him. Between innings, he quietly paced in the dugout while avoiding almost any human contact. And when he was atop the mound, he pounded the strike zone and executed pitch after pitch, yielding his only run in the second inning when Ramón Laureano (one of several sizzling San Diego deadline acquisitions) clipped the outside of the left-field foul pole to open the scoring.
“There’s just no one more intense or focused than Clayton,” Roberts said. “He has a way of elevating people’s focus and play.”
It certainly appeared that way. Defensively, the Dodgers helped Kershaw out by turning several tough plays around the infield — from Freddie Freeman picking a ball in the dirt the second inning, to Alex Freeland and then Kershaw himself making tough plays in the third and fifth, respectively.
At the plate, the Dodgers also managed to capitalize on a bases-loaded, no-out opportunity in the third, after singles from Michael Conforto and Freeland were followed by a popped-up Miguel Rojas bunt that Padres third baseman Manny Machado couldn’t catch with a dive.
The Dodgers didn’t get another hit in the inning, but Shohei Ohtani drove in one run by beating out a potential double-play ball. Mookie Betts then added a go-ahead sacrifice fly.
The score remained 2-1 until Teoscar Hernández belted an opposite-field homer in the seventh, producing a massively important insurance run.
Then, it was up to the bullpen, which was asked to protect the kind of slim late-game lead they’ve squandered all too often during the team’s recent skid.
Dodgers relief pitcher Jack Dreyer celebrates after the final out of a 3-2 win over the San Diego Padres on Friday night at Dodger Stadium.
(Gina Ferazzi / Los Angeles Times)
Ben Casparius pitched a scoreless seventh inning, stranding a two-out double from Jackson Merrill.
Alex Vesia created a jam in the eighth by hitting two batters and loading the bases on a walk. But the Padres only managed one run, with Vesia getting Luis Arraez to hit a sacrifice fly before Blake Treinen came on and retired Manny Machado on a first-pitch pop-up.
In the ninth inning, surprisingly, Roberts didn’t stick with Treinen — who they’ve been wary of using for multiple innings as he continues to work his way back from an early-season elbow injury.
The move might’ve been questionable. But, at long last, the result didn’t backfire.
Alexis Díaz and Jack Dreyer pitched around a single from Merrill in the ninth.
The Dodgers finally held on to a late lead. And after spending the last 48 hours in second place, the team climbed back to the top of the division standings, exorcising the close-game demons that had so dauntingly haunted them over the last several weeks.
Hi, and welcome to another edition of Dodgers Dugout. My name is Houston Mitchell. For some reason, I’ve been wanting to listen to “Free Fallin’ ” by Tom Petty a lot lately. I wonder why?
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So, here we are.
After the games of July 3, the NL West standings looked like this:
When you have basically the same record as the Rockies over a 33-game stretch, well, that’s not ideal.
So what happened? For a while it was starting pitching, but the return of Tyler Glasnow and Blake Snell have stabilized that. For a while it was the offense, but Mookie Betts and company are hitting better now, stabilizing that.
The Dodgers caught all the breaks last season, this season it seems none of them go their way (for example, Edgardo Henriquez trying to field that double-play grounder in the eighth inning Wednesday, tipping the ball away for an infield single, loading the bases). There’s not much that can be done if the baseball gods are frowning upon you.
Let’s take a look at a couple of things:
Dodgers runs per game, 2024: 5.20 Dodgers runs per game, 2025: 5.17
So really, it’s the bullpen. It’s terrible. Let’s look at the Dodger bullpen at this moment:
Anthony Banda, 3.38 ERA Ben Casparius, 4.78 Alexis Díaz, 7.71 Jack Dreyer, 2.90 Edgardo Henriquez, 0.00 (only 4.2 IP) Blake Treinen, 4.26 Alex Vesia, 2.76 Justin Wrobelski, 4.09
Now, let’s look at the Dodger bullpen through much of the postseason last year:
Anthony Banda, 3.08 ERA last season Ryan Brasier, 3.54 Ben Casparius, 2.16 Brusdar Graterol, 2.45 Brent Honeywell, 2.62 Daniel Hudson, 3.00 Landon Knack, 3.65 Michael Kopech, 1.13 Evan Phillips, 3.62 Blake Treinen, 1.93 Alex Vesia, 1.76
The Dodgers had anywhere from 6-8 shut-down guys in their bullpen last season. Right now, they have zero. The guy they acquired to help out, Brock Stewart, is on the IL with a bad shoulder. Hard to believe that you could acquire a guy with a history of shoulder problems and he gets sideline by … a shoulder problem. Alex Vesia, so strong last season, seems gassed from overuse.
Kirby Yates, signed to a one-year, $13-million deal, is on the IL.
Tanner Scott, signed to be the new closer for four years, $72 million, is on the IL.
Michael Kopech is on the IL.
Brusdar Graterol is on the IL, and it looks more and more unlikely that he will return this season.
Evan Phillips is on the IL, out for the year.
Ryan Brasier is pitching for the Cubs.
Daniel Hudson retired. (Hey, maybe the Dodgers can give him a call).
Remember Antonio Osuna? He pitched for the Dodgers in the mid- and late-90s and had electric stuff. Threw near 100 mph, and struck out more than a batter an inning back when it wasn’t as common as it is now. But every time they tried to make him a closer, he fell apart. Couldn’t do it. The whole bullpen right now reminds me of Osuna. From the fourth to seventh innings, they pitch fine, but when it comes down to the final two innings, especially when the Dodgers have a narrow lead, they fall apart.
So, what’s the solution? Well, there won’t be any trades, because the deadline has past. What the Dodgers will do is wait, and hope that Scott, Yates and Kopech can come back at some point and pitch like they are capable of doing. And that Treinen rediscovers his form from last season.
So, it’s going to be frustrating. The offense is going to have to provide some bigger leads. They have had chances to do it recently but have failed. The starting pitching will have to remain consistent. And someone will need to step up in the bullpen. They need Vesia to pitch like the old Vesia, not the one from the last three games. They need someone to say “OK men, follow me.”
A lot of people are down on Dave Roberts, saying he has mismanaged the bullpen. Managing the bullpen has always been his biggest weakness, but he hasn’t had much to work with this year. It’s like playing BeanBoozled. You reach into the pile and hope you get the lime flavored jelly bean, not the garbage flavored.
I still believe the Dodgers will make the postseason, where anything can happen. Last season at this time, they had only a two-game lead of the Padres and Diamondbacks. Some Dodger fans were convinced this team didn’t have what it takes. They then won 11 of their next 14.
This weekend and next weekend against the Padres will be a real test. The Padres and their fans will be fired up. They’d love to stomp on the Dodgers right now. Will they? Time will tell. But the season isn’t over. Don’t give in to pessimism, be a realist. A lot can still happen, we don’t know how things will play out. That’s what makes it fun to watch.
Michael Conforto
Why is Michael Conforto still playing? Why isn’t Alex Call out there? Or Dalton Rushing?
That’s the question I get most frequently. We’ve talked about this subject before, but rather than hear me talk about it again, I asked Jack Harris, our Dodgers beat writer who is with the team almost every day, for his thoughts:
“Ah yes, the Michael Conforto discourse has returned. After a decent July (.273 average, .827 OPS), the $17-million offseason signing has indeed gone back into a deep freeze in August (three for 30). His struggles reached the point on Wednesday that manager Dave Roberts sat him against the Angels — in part because Angels right-hander Kyle Hendricks has reverse splits, but also, Roberts acknowledged, because of Conforto’s latest slump.
“ ‘I gotta try to find some combinations to get some production, some consistent production,’ Roberts said. ‘That’s just kind of where we’re at in this time of season. I’ve gotta do that.’
“Despite that, Conforto will still get regular at-bats for the time being (starting with Friday’s series opener against the Padres). Why?
“Well, for one, the Dodgers still don’t have many obviously better options. Alex Call is batting .150 since coming over from the Nationals. The team has closed the door on last year’s experiment with Dalton Rushing in the outfield (he is also hitting just .202 this season). And until Tommy Edman and Kiké Hernández return, the club’s outfield depth is frankly too thin (yes, Ryan Ward is tearing it up in triple-A, but the team has already bypassed him multiple times when calling up outfielders, which probably tells you how much they think he could impact the big-league lineup).
“Also, the Dodgers were encouraged by Conforto’s performance in July. To at least some degree, it factored into their decision not to make a bigger addition to the lineup. The last couple of weeks have been bad, but they continue to believe he’ll be at least somewhat more productive down the stretch. I know many fans will disagree, but that remains the team’s stance.
“All that said, and as Wednesday epitomized, Conforto will have to heat up again at some point to remain a fixture in the lineup.”
“The guess here: You’ll start to see his playing time gradually decrease the rest of the way if he doesn’t turn things around, and as others on the roster get healthy. For now, however, the team’s lack of alternatives means he’ll continue to play.”
Thanks Jack. So there you have it. Learn to live with Conforto, at least for a little while longer.
The Padres
The Padres are up next, and they are playing very well. The Dodgers could be four games out of first by Monday, or two games ahead, or somewhere in between. That’s why they play the games and don’t just give the win to the hot team.
It would be a mistake to think the Padres are invincible. They had their own points in the season where they slumped. The went 5-11 at one point in June and had a losing record that month. They went 3-10 at one point in May. That’s how they fell nine games back. So, keep in mind that every team has had problems this season.
Let’s compare the two teams and where they rank among the 30 MLB teams:
Scott is expected to throw to hitters this week and hopefully go to the minors for some rehab work after that.
Yates is a step ahead of Scott, having thrown to hitters already this week.
Kopech was set to begin a minor-league rehab assignment Thursday at triple-A Oklahoma City.
Tony Gonsolin had surgery and will not return this season.
This feels more like a MASH unit than a baseball team at times.
How does this compare?
Where were the Dodgers in the standings each Aug. 15 since they started their postseason streak in 2013? Let’s look:
2013 70-50, First place, 7.5 games ahead of Arizona
2014 70-54, First place, five games ahead of San Francisco
2015 66-51, First place, 2.5 games ahead of San Diego
2016 65-52, Second place, 0.5 game behind San Francisco
2017 84-54, First place, 18.5 games ahead of Colorado and Arizona
2018 65-57, Tied for second, 1.5 games behind Arizona
2019 81-42, First place, 19.5 games ahead of Arizona and San Francisco
2020 COVID shortened year
2021 72-46, Second place, four games behind San Francisco
2022 80-34, First place, 17 games ahead of San Diego
2023 72-46, First place, nine games ahead of San Francisco
2024 71-51, First place, two games ahead of San Diego and Arizona
So this isn’t even the most they’ve trailed at this point. In 2021, they ended up 106-56, one game behind the Giants. They beat St. Louis in the wild-card game, beat the Giants in the NLDS, before losing to Atlanta in the NLCS.
Up next
Friday: San Diego (TBD) at Dodgers (*Clayton Kershaw, 6-2, 3.14 ERA), 7:10 p.m., Sportsnet LA, AM 570, KTNQ 1020
Saturday: San Diego (Dylan Cease, 5-10, 4.52 ERA) at Dodgers (*Blake Snell, 2-1, 2.37 ERA), 6:10 p.m., Sportsnet LA, AM 570, KTNQ 1020
Sunday: San Diego (Yu Darvish, 2-3, 5.61 ERA) at Dodgers (Tyler Glasnow, 1-1, 3.08 ERA), 1:10 p.m., Sportsnet LA, AM 570, KTNQ 1020
Wally Moon discusses the origin and the art of hitting a “Moon Shot.” Watch and listen here.
Until next time…
Have a comment or something you’d like to see in a future Dodgers newsletter? Email me at [email protected]. To get this newsletter in your inbox, click here.
Parking at Petco Park, home of the San Diego Padres, is a distinctly different experience than parking at Dodger Stadium.
It’s about to be similar, however, when it comes to price.
City crews installed about 400 signs in downtown San Diego last week to let drivers know about new street parking-meter rates taking effect Sept. 1, calling it a special event zone. The hourly rate will increase from $2.50 to $10 starting two hours before games or concerts at the stadium, and will remain at that rate for six hours.
Getting to the stadium an hour before a three-hour game and perhaps enjoying a drink or meal at one of the establishments in the Gaslamp Quarter a short walk from the stadium can lift the cost of parking from $15 to $60.
And it could get worse. The variable parking rate policy change that the San Diego City Council approved in June allows the city to charge as much as $20 an hour, but officials are starting with $10.
The Padres were taken by surprise by the city’s action and objected to the increase, complaining that it was implemented without significant input from the team.
“We look forward to better understanding the city’s plan,” Padres spokesperson Vanessa Dominguez said.
Watching the kerfuffle must be amusing for Dodgers officials, who long have taken it on the chin for seemingly exorbitant parking fees and an enormous, barren parking lot that has all the charm of, well, an enormous, barren parking lot.
Parking at Chavez Ravine is not nearly as fun as at Petco Park, where the dozens of nearby restaurants, bars, shops and music venues make it akin to attending a Chicago Cubs game at Wrigley Field.
General admission parking at Dodger Stadium is $35 if prepaid and $40 at the gate, but it’s a long hike to the seats. Preferred parking — translation: a shorter walk — is $60, the same as the six-hour meter charge will be at Petco.
Dodgers fans have their complaints about parking — primarily a postgame snarl to get out of the Stadium that makes navigating the 405 seem like a breeze — and drama too often colors the experience.
A tailgating ban is enforced so diligently that fans can’t even enjoy an El Ruso taco leaning over the trunk of their car without being scolded by a security officer. Safety is difficult to ensure as well: Fans have been beaten senseless walking to or from their cars.
And through no fault of the Dodgers, a procession of vehicles identified as federal agents attempted to enter the stadium on June 19, a day immigration raids capped two weeks of roundups by arresting “30 illegal aliens in Hollywood … and nine illegal aliens in San Fernando and Pacoima,” Homeland Security Assistant Secretary Tricia McLaughlin said.
Federal officials said the gathering of vehicles was to conduct a briefing, and the Dodgers denied the vehicles entry into the stadium.
Parking near Petco Park is relatively safe, with well-lit lots and streets part of the fabric of a neighborhood packed with revelers. And Padres fans don’t require a metered street spot to park. The team runs several lots a few blocks from the stadium where parking can be reserved ahead of time. Rates range from $10 to $40.
The quadrupled special-event metered rate changes near Petco were included in a sweeping package of new parking rules throughout San Diego designed to increase revenue.
No more free parking on Sundays. Soon, no more free parking at the San Diego Zoo, Balboa Park and Mission Bay Park. Free beach parking will be a perk of the past.
The city doubled meter rates to $2.50 an hour in most places. And meter hours around the city will be extended by at least two hours later this summer. The increase is expected to bring in about $4 million through the remainder of the fiscal year, and at least $9.6 million annually starting next fiscal year, according to the San Diego Union Tribune.
“This city is a playground for folks,” San Diego Councilmember Sean Elo-Rivera said at a recent meeting. “It is really important to me that San Diegans not be subsidizing the vacations of tourists who have the financial capability of coming here and enjoying this city.”
Most Padres fans are San Diego-area residents, although when the Dodgers visit the city to their south the crowd is noticeably peppered with folks wearing Dodgers gear. As the rivalry between the teams has grown in recent years, Petco has become a favorite destination for Dodgers fans.
Groups like Pantone 294 — the Dodgers official blue-tone color is listed as Pantone 294 — organize “takeovers,” with hundreds of Dodgers fans purchasing tickets in the same section of an opposing ballpark. For the short trip to San Diego, fans can join others on tour buses or drive their own cars.
When it comes to parking those cars, fees will have risen. Savvy fans who don’t mind taking the time can reduce the cost by parking near a San Diego trolley or MTS bus station: The fare remains $2.50.
