Dodgers Outlast Padres in Late-Inning Fight

Freddie Freeman arrived at Petco Park on Tuesday night still dealing with lingering flu-like symptoms, which is probably not the ideal physical condition for facing one of the nastiest collections of relievers in baseball.

Naturally, he responded by hitting two home runs.

As Dodgers radio broadcaster Rick Monday put it: Freeman may have been under the weather, but he was hitting balls over the fence.

That pretty much captured the evening.

The Dodgers scratched, clawed and occasionally stumbled their way to a 5-4 victory over the Padres, evening the series in a game that somehow managed to feel both tense and slightly unhinged by the ninth inning.

Freeman’s bat carried the early load. After Shohei Ohtani doubled to open the game, Freeman drove a two-run homer to center in the first inning. Later, after San Diego answered with home runs from Manny Machado and Miguel Andújar, Freeman tied the game again with a solo shot in the sixth.

It was exactly the type of night the Dodgers needed from a veteran star who entered the game in a 4-for-29 slump and admittedly not feeling particularly healthy.

“I mean, zeros across the board today,” Freeman said afterward while praising the Dodgers pitching staff. “A couple mistakes from Emmet on the home runs, but overall I think he still pitched pretty well. Edgardo has been great in the middle innings and Tanner was great.”

The bullpen eventually became the story almost as much as Freeman.

Emmet Sheehan lasted only four innings, forcing Dave Roberts to lean heavily on a relief corps that has spent much of the season walking a tightrope between overworked and indispensable. The group delivered.

Tanner Scott recorded four key outs and picked up his first win, while Will Klein handled the ninth inning with surprising calm for a pitcher securing his first career save in the middle of a Dodgers-Padres game at Petco Park, which is not exactly a low-stress environment.

“Each man did their job,” Roberts said. “I asked a little bit more of Tanner tonight. They were ready when called upon and got big outs for us.”

He also made a point to single out Klein and Edgardo Henriquez.

“It’s good to see some guys kind of come of age as well,” Roberts said. “They did a fantastic job.”

Still, the game turned in the ninth against Padres closer Mason Miller, who entered having dominated virtually everyone for the first two months of the season. The Dodgers didn’t exactly light him up. They mostly annoyed him into unraveling.

Max Muncy began the inning by successfully challenging a called third strike through the ABS system, turning what would have been an out into a walk. Alex Call entered as a pinch-runner and immediately tested Miller’s attention.

That decision changed the game.

Miller appeared to catch Call leaning too far off first base, but his throw sailed past Ty France and into right field, allowing Call to sprint all the way to third. Suddenly, the Dodgers had the go-ahead run ninety feet away with one out.

“First off, credit to Muncy,” Call said. “Great at getting on base. Then coming in to pinch run, green light there. Trust the scouting, trust your eyes.”

Call admitted there was some good fortune involved.

“There’s a reason why he’s only got a couple picks in the last few years,” he said with a smile. “But yeah, it’s lucky when it works out in your favor.”

That brought Andy Pages to the plate for what became the defining at-bat of the night.

Facing one of the hardest throwers in baseball, Pages fouled off four separate two-strike pitches in a stubborn nine-pitch battle before finally lifting a sacrifice fly to right field. Fernando Tatis Jr.’s throw home nearly erased Call at the plate, but Call managed to slide in just underneath the tag for the deciding run.

Roberts sounded impressed by the survival instinct involved from Pages.

“I think at the end of the day it was just fight,” Roberts said. “It was him versus Mason Miller. He wasn’t going to lose that battle.”

Then Roberts took the thought even further.

“It’s fight or flight,” he said. “Andy’s a tough kid and he’s hungry. That was his only focus in that at-bat. It was just desire.”

That desire finally cracked Miller for the first time all season.

And for one night at least, the Dodgers looked very comfortable winning ugly in San Diego.