Steve Webb
SAN DIEGO, CA — Wooboy! That was fun. The Dodgers scored nine runs over the last three innings of the game on Friday night, turning what had been a nailbiter into something of a laugher, as the team rode disciplined at-bats and key hits to a 10-5 victory over the rival Padres at PetCo Park.
For the first two-thirds of this game, it looked like the Padres might emerge victorious. All the Dodgers could muster against starter Yu Darvish was a mammoth home run from James Outman in the second and an RBI infield single from Outman again in the seventh. The Padres, meanwhile, managed two runs against starter Bobby Miller and Alex Vesia surrendered an RBI single in the bottom of the sixth, so the game went into the final two frames with the Friars clinging to a 3-2 lead.
Then Darvish took a seat, and good things started to happen almost immediately for the Dodger bats. Kiké Hernandez, continuing his nice start with the club, ripped a leadoff single into the gap in left centerfield off new Padre reliever Robert Suarez. Then, Mookie Betts drew a walk to put runners on first and second with nobody out. However, when Freddie Freeman lined out to short and Will Smith chased a pitch to strike out, it looked like the rally might fizzle.
But the Boys in Blue were just getting started. David Peralta fell behind 1-2 when Suarez gave him a low-in-the zone sinker that the crafty Peralta went the other way with, ripping a double down the left field line. It tied the ballgame and the Dodgers were off to the races. An ill-advised intentional walk to Jayson Heyward loaded up the bases. Then, back-to-back walks to Chris Taylor and J.D. Martinez plated two more runs. Finally, it was new Amed Rosario who delivered the coup de gras, ripping a two-run double past the first baseman. By the end of the frame, ten Dodgers had come to the plate, and five runs had scored.
“That’s what we’ve been doing all year. Putting together at-bats, a team approach,” Peralta said of the 8th. “That was a huge inning for us. We got the opportunity to score some runs, and that’s what we did. That’s what it’s all about. That’s a team win. Celebrate today and then we’re going to be ready for tomorrow to do the same thing.”
The game moved into the bottom of the eighth with a 7-3 lead However, things got a little dicey when Caleb Ferguson surrendered a run and left a couple of runners on base before surrendering the ball to Evan Phillips. So, with the tying run at the plate in the person Fernando Tatis Jr., Phillips was able to keep the ball in the yard (barely). He gave up a long flyball to Tatis, but it landed harmlessly in the glove of Mookie Betts.
And that essentially was the ballgame. The Dodgers tacked on three more in the top of the ninth, so when Phillips gave up a home run to Juan Soto in the bottom of the inning, it elicited little more than a yawn from fans, who knew the game was basically over. A couple of pop-ups and a groundout later, the game was over.
“It’s a resilient club,” Dodgers manager Dave Roberts said of the victory. “It was a tale of two games offensively. First six innings were sort of lifeless. Credit to Yu. But after that, we picked up.”
