LOS ANGELES — The San Diego Padres might consider the Dodgers their bitter rivals. But Saturday night, they were their own worst enemy.
In the first two innings alone, Padres starter Dylan Cease walked six batters, center fielder Jackson Merrill dropped a fly ball and three Padres baserunners were thrown out trying to steal second base. That fueled a five-run head start for the Dodgers, who went on to beat the Padres 6-0.
The sloppy start took the edge off the middle game of the showdown series. But the Dodgers’ back-to-back wins this weekend allowed them to regain sole possession of first place in the National League West and ensured they will have at least a share of first when the Dodger Stadium half of the home-and-home matchup ends Sunday. The two teams will meet again at Petco Park next weekend.
The Padres spent those first two innings Saturday taking aim and shooting themselves in the foot. It was the only target Cease located accurately.
The first three batters reached base against Dodgers starter Blake Snell on two singles and a double. The two singles were each followed quickly by a failed attempt to steal second base and Snell escaped the inning having retired just one batter (Merrill on a fly out).
Xander Bogaerts led off the second inning with a single, making it four hits in the first five Padres batters. He made the same mistake as Fernando Tatis Jr. and Manny Machado in the first inning, getting thrown out by Dodgers catcher Will Smith when he tried to steal second.
Snell took these gifts and ran with them. He allowed just one more hit after Bogaerts’ leadoff single in the second inning. Aided by the Padres’ self-defeating aggressiveness early, Snell went six scoreless innings, the longest of the five starts he has made as a Dodger this season.
Cease announced his presence with authority, walking the first three batters he faced. Cease threw just five strikes in his first 17 pitches. The Dodgers cashed in one with a sacrifice fly by Teoscar Hernandez and two more on a two-out, full-count single by Michael Conforto.
Cease walked two more batters in the second inning but was ready to strand them when he got Freddie Freeman to loft a fly ball to the warning track in right-center field.
Both Merrill and right fielder Fernando Tatis Jr. converged on the ball, with Merrill reaching out to make the catch. The ball bounced off Merrill’s glove, and two unearned runs scored on the error.
Cease threw 58 pitches to get through the first two innings (only 27 strikes) and wasn’t long for the mound. He was pulled in the fourth inning. Padres reliever David Morgan gave up a solo home run to Hernandez in the fifth inning.
The highlight of the later innings, as the Dodgers’ bullpen closed out a six-hit shutout, came in the top of the seventh when Edgardo Henriquez replaced Snell on the mound.
The right-handed reliever had five pitches in the inning that were measured at 100.5 mph or higher, including a 103.3 mph fastball to Ryan O’Hearn for a called third strike to end the seventh inning. It was the fastest pitch recorded by a Dodgers pitcher during the Statcast era (which began in 2015).
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