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Dodgers held to 3 hits as Padres take series opener, regain share of 1st – San Bernardino Sun

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Dodgers starting pitcher Blake Snell works against a San Diego Padres batter during the first inning of a baseball game Friday, Aug. 22, 2025, in San Diego. (AP Photo/Orlando Ramirez)

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SAN DIEGO — The Dodgers’ offense has taken on the characteristics of a light bulb, flickering on and off as it is about to expire. It went dark again Friday night.

The Dodgers were held to three hits by Yu Darvish and the San Diego Padres’ bullpen and the Padres took a 2-1 victory in the opener of this weekend’s NL West skirmish.

The win pulls the Padres and Dodgers into a tie atop the division with just two games left in the regular-season series. And it highlights a familiar failing of the Dodgers’ recently – they are just 5-11 in their past 16 one-run decisions.

“I think when you’re in it, you don’t really have the time to think about disappointment and what could’ve been,” Dodgers manager Dave Roberts said. “You’ve got to just go out there and deal with what’s going on right now.

“We’re tied in the standings and we’ve got to win a game tomorrow. There’s just no other way to look at it.”

Darvish retired the first seven Dodgers in order before hanging a 2-and-1 sweeper to rookie Alex Freeland in the third inning. Freeland gladly accepted the gift, ripping it into the right field seats for his first major-league home run – and the Dodgers’ only hit off Darvish.

“Super unreal. Could barely feel the ground,” Freeland said.

“I was looking out and over, and he threw it out and over.”

The offense flickered out after that. Darvish hit Buddy Kennedy with a pitch but retired the next nine Dodgers in order. He walked Shohei Ohtani with one out in the sixth, but Mookie Betts promptly grounded into a double play.

“I don’t think he missed many pitches over the plate,” Dodgers outfielder Teoscar Hernandez said. “He was hitting every corner. He was making a lot of pitches for him, good pitches for him.

“You don’t know where to look. You don’t know what pitches to look for. He was using all the pitches today. Hitting the spot, corners really good with all of it. So it’s one of those days you say, ‘OK, I’m gonna try to put the ball in play, see what happens, see if something good happens.’ For us, it didn’t happen today.”

Darvish used eight different pitches by Statcast reckoning – a cutter, a sinker, a slider, a sweeper, a changeup, a splitter, a four-seam fastball he only threw nine times and a curveball he soft-tossed as low as 68.5 mph. The Dodgers swung and missed just four times at his 74 pitches but hit very little with authority.

“He flipped the script,” Roberts said. “I think at our place he couldn’t find the zone and trusted his fastball. Today there was a lot more cutters inside to righties. There was a lot more sweepers and the curveball, and he didn’t lean on his fastball at all. I don’t think we got many balls out of the infield tonight. He just changed the script and made pitches when he needed to.”

Dodgers starter Blake Snell wasn’t as diversified as Darvish. But it was an odd sequence at the end of the third inning that might have been his biggest problem.

Ramon Laureano led off the third inning with a single and moved to second on a sacrifice bunt. Snell struck out Freddy Fermin for the second out of the inning and got to 2-and-2 on Fernando Tatis Jr. when Tatis checked his swing at a curveball.

While Snell and catcher Will Smith appealed to the first-base umpire, Laureano wandered away from second base, looking back over his shoulder for the call from first-base umpire Chris Guccione. When Guccione spread his arms wide, signaling Tatis had not swung – and had not struck out – Laureano was flat-footed in no-man’s land. Smith threw to Buddy Kennedy at third base. Kennedy tagged Laureano out to end the inning.

That gave Tatis a fresh slate, leading off the fifth inning. He nearly squandered it, falling behind 0-and-2 but worked a walk, setting the Padres’ winning rally in motion.

Luis Arraez bunted him to second and Manny Machado sliced a single into right-center to score Tatis. Another single by Ryan O’Hearn sent Machado to third and Xander Bogaerts’ sacrifice fly brought Machado in with the go-ahead run.

Snell (who left immediately after the game to be with his wife who had gone into labor) went seven innings for the first time as a Dodger, spreading six hits and two walks over that span.

“I thought Blake was fantastic tonight. Really good lineup and he really navigated it,” Roberts said. “He got through seven innings. Just a really stellar performance. Unfortunately, we couldn’t figure out Darvish.”

Darvish handed that 2-1 lead to the Padres’ trade deadline-fortified bullpen for the final three innings. The Dodgers threatened twice.

Mason Miller brought his high-octane fastball in for the eighth and missed the mark often enough (while topping out at 102.6 mph) to walk two of the first three batters he faced.

Dalton Rushing came off the bench to pinch-hit and bounced a ground ball to Arraez at first. He threw to shortstop Bogaerts, whose throw to Miller covering first, bounced in the dirt. Miller scooped it just as Rushing arrived. Guccione’s safe call was overturned by a replay review, ending the inning.

Betts singled with one out in the ninth and Freddie Freeman did the same with two outs, putting runners at the corners. Padres closer Robert Suarez struck out Hernandez to end the game.

The Dodgers had just two at-bats with runners in scoring position in the game – Rushing’s double play and Hernandez’s strikeout.

“We had the right guy at the plate and felt good about Teo,” Roberts said. “I think that one early in the at-bat – the ball down that was called a strike – I think obviously that led him to chase that last pitch. I thought he put together a good at-bat but Suarez is a good pitcher. They got us tonight.”



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