Petco Park will host baseball for the 22nd season in 2025. I’m not sure if any other regular season series played here could have had greater significance than this one.
Sitting 1.0 games behind Los Angeles in the National League West and still reeling from the whitewash at Dodger Stadium the previous weekend, the Padres hosted the Dodgers to begin a three-game set. A series victory entitles the team to at least a portion of the top spot. They would require assistance to capture their first division title since 2006 if they lost the series.
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Thank you very much; they’ll take the former. With a dramatic 2-1 victory in front of 44,864 fans in a game that felt almost like a playoff series, the Padres pulled back into a first-place tie.
After dominating the first two innings, Yu Darvish left rookie infielder Alex Freeland a sweeper in the middle of the strike zone, which he hit for his first big league home run into the right field seats. But that was the only thing that went against Darvish’s will.
The 39-year-old either demonstrated to everyone that he is impressively still in his prime or he turned back time. Darvish pitched 6.0 innings, giving up only one hit to Freeland while striking out five batters. To set the tone for the weekend, the Padres needed just the right kind of outing.
Blake Snell was on the Dodgers’ mound. Snell has a tendency to get himself into problems with walks, as Padres supporters are well aware. As expected, he led off the fourth inning by walking Fernando Tatis Jr., which sparked the Padres’ first run-scoring outburst. Luis Arraez sacrifice bunted Tatis Jr. to second base, and he scored an RBI single to tie the game 1-1 when Manny Machado hit the first pitch he saw into right-centerfield.
Xander Bogaerts pitched a solid out, lofting the first ball into right-centerfield for a sac fly that put San Diego ahead 2-1. Ryan O’Hearn next singled, moving Machado to third base.
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Darvish got Mookie Betts to hit a strong ground ball to the left side in the top of the sixth inning after walking Shohei Ohtani, the lone free pass he gave out that evening. Machado devoured it and ended the inning with a double play around the horn. The strategy with San Diego’s bullpen is to get through 6.0 and hand it off to the Horsemen, even if Darvish had only thrown 74 pitches.
Mason Miller encountered difficulties in the eighth inning after Jason Adam worked a scoreless seventh. The tying run was in scoring position with one out after two walks. A pitcher’s best friend is a double play, especially if he gets to participate in it. Dalton Rushing, a pinch hitter, hit a ground ball to first base thanks to Miller. The pitcher made a fantastic play, making a low throw to beat Rushing by half a step to end the inning after Arraez caught it and sent it to second base, where Bogaerts turned and threw to Miller covering the bag.
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Robert Suarez had to go through the top of the Dodgers’ powerful order in the ninth inning. Ohtani blasted a long fly ball to centerfield, but it died at the warning track and fell into Bryce Johnson’s glove without causing any damage. Teoscar Hernandez reached the plate when Betts, who always manages to come up with a base hit in the closing moments of close games, singled before Suarez struck out Will Smith and gave up a single to Freddie Freeman.
“BEAT L.A.! BEAT L.A.” erupted around Petco Park as the All-Star closer took a 0–2 lead and went out to talk with pitching coach Ruben Niebla. Suarez made his 34th and most significant save of the season by reaching back for a little something more and hitting Hernandez with a fastball that was 102 mph.
When Nestor Cortes takes the mound against Tyler Glasnow on Saturday night, the Padres have a chance to win the series and grab exclusive ownership of first place.
