Dodgers Pull Up A Chair, Padres Take A Seat

The San Diego Padres arrived at Dodger Stadium on Tuesday night riding a five-game winning streak and apparently feeling pretty good about themselves. The Dodgers had other plans. They pulled up a chair, invited their so-called rivals to take a seat, and then spent the next three hours reminding San Diego that there are still some things it needs to work out before October.

The final score was 7-0, but that doesn't quite capture how thoroughly the Dodgers dismantled the Padres. Los Angeles scored six of its seven runs with two outs, used eight pitchers in a bullpen game and held San Diego to five hits. Fernando Tatis Jr. and Manny Machado, the two faces of the Padres' lineup, combined to go 1-for-7 with five strikeouts.

It started in the first inning, when Brock Stewart put a little inside heat on Machado and sent him to the seat of his pants. Machado got back up, dusted himself off and continued playing. At the time, it looked like an isolated bit of baseball unpleasantness.

It turned out to be more of a preview.

The Dodgers broke the game open in the second inning after Michael King had already recorded two outs on six pitches. Then things got considerably less efficient for the Padres right-hander. Teoscar Hernández and Josue De Paula singled, Andy Pages was hit by a pitch, and King walked Tommy Edman and Mookie Betts to force home two runs. Freddie Freeman followed with a two-run single, and suddenly a pitcher who had looked perfectly comfortable six pitches earlier was staring at a 4-0 deficit.

That was essentially the game.

The Dodgers added another run in the fourth when Betts doubled and scored on another two-out Freeman single. Edman then launched a two-out solo homer in the sixth, and Will Smith followed with a 396-foot blast in the seventh.

Seven runs.

Six with two outs.

And enough empty space on the scoreboard to make San Diego's five-game winning streak feel like something that happened to another team.

“It was a complete baseball game,” Dave Roberts said. “Everything was good.”

That may be about as close as Roberts gets to handing out gold stars.

The pitching certainly qualified.

The Dodgers opened with Stewart and then passed the ball around like they were trying to make sure everybody got a turn. Justin Wrobleski followed Stewart and earned the win, while the Dodgers used eight pitchers to produce their fifth shutout in franchise history in a game in which they used at least that many.

And then there was Roki Sasaki.

After missing nearly a month with a blister on his right middle finger, Sasaki returned to the mound and, perhaps more importantly, returned in the role that has been the subject of considerably more than one Season At A Glance column around here.

The bullpen.

He pitched one inning, touched 100 mph with his four-seam fastball and struck out a batter. More importantly, he looked comfortable. There was no need to stretch the outing into something it wasn't. He came in, attacked, got his outs and handed the ball over.

“I’m just gonna make the most of every opportunity I’m given,” Sasaki said.

That's exactly what the Dodgers need from him.

And if Tuesday was any indication, the experiment is off to a rather interesting start.

Edwin Díaz followed Sasaki and struck out two in a scoreless inning, looking much more like the pitcher the Dodgers expected to see when they signed him. For one night, at least, the Dodgers got the version of their bullpen they have been waiting to see, with Sasaki providing the 100-mph appetizer and Díaz following with the main course.

The Padres didn't have much to say about any of it.

Tatis and Machado combined for five strikeouts, King was gone after four innings and San Diego's five-game winning streak disappeared almost as quickly as it arrived.

Meanwhile, the Dodgers improved to 97-60 and 15-5 in September, extending their winning streak to five games. They also moved within one game of Milwaukee for the best record in baseball, although the Brewers hold the head-to-head tiebreaker.

More immediately, Los Angeles needs one victory or an Atlanta loss to clinch a first-round bye into the National League Division Series.

Those are the numbers that matter.

But so does the way the Dodgers are playing right now.

“We're playing good baseball, so we need to carry it on for the next five games,” Freddie Freeman said.

Exactly.

That's the part worth remembering.

This wasn't one of those games where the Dodgers scored 11 runs and everybody spent the next 24 hours declaring that the offense had suddenly rediscovered itself. This was something considerably more useful: They played clean baseball, got outstanding work from a bullpen cobbled together for the night, got power from Edman and Smith, got Freeman doing Freddie Freeman things, and watched Sasaki step into a new role without making it seem like a big production.

And they did it against a San Diego team that had arrived in Los Angeles playing very good baseball of its own.

The Padres came in with five straight wins.

They left with a zero on the scoreboard.

Sometimes the best way to end somebody's winning streak is not particularly complicated.

 You just pull up a chair.

Ask your guest to take a seat.

And then get ready to do it again Wednesday.