Good morning from Los Angeles,
On a circus of a night at Dodger Stadium, the home team emptied out its clown car full of pitchers to beat the Padres once again.
That seems like a problem, since the Dodgers will use their bullpen to navigate tonight’s game as well.
Starting with Game 5 of last year’s National League Division Series and including two losses last week, the Padres simply cannot solve Dodgers’ relief pitching.
The reason the Padres lost last night’s game was Dylan Cease was again only close to being a truly effective pitcher.
Their erstwhile ace allowed five runs in the fourth inning.
But the Padres had their chances to come back, and they hardly made the Dodgers’ last four pitchers work.
After the Padres got to 6-3 and had a runner on second with one out in the sixth inning, Alex Vesia threw eight pitches to get the final two outs in the sixth, Michael Kopech 11 pitches in the seventh, Tanner Scott seven pitches in the eighth and Kirby Yates 10 pitches in the ninth.
The good news for the Padres is that the last three of those relievers also pitched Sunday. So maybe they will be unavailable tonight.
The Padres would do well to at least split this four-game series, or they will leave here Thursday night no better than five games back in the National League West and possibly also having fallen out of playoff position.
Partially because of the goings-on around the NL West and also so I could make deadline for the print edition, my game story (here) centered around a bigger picture look at the division now that the Giants got Rafael Devers and the Dodgers have Shohei Ohtani on the mound.
The Sho
The Padres’ fell just short of forcing the Dodgers to go off script in the first inning.
As the game story described, that is when Ohtani made his Dodgers debut as a pitcher.
Dodger Stadium was so riled up, you have to wonder what will happen when Ohtani actually pitches more than one inning.
He almost didn’t make it that long last night.
He was one batter away from being lifted, but his 28th pitch induced a groundout from Xander Bogaerts.
The Padres didn’t pound Ohtani, but Fernando Tatis Jr. and Luis Arraez greeted him with soft singles, and Manny Machado drove in Tatis with a sacrifice fly.
That came two pitches after this “check swing” by Machado that had Ohtani pretty upset:
Shohei Ohtani was…not pleased with this check-swing call that kept Manny Machado alive. Machado then hit a sac fly. pic.twitter.com/8mwkX4hObd
— Rowan Kavner (@RowanKavner) June 17, 2025
“I guess as a pitcher he shows a lot more emotion and gets frustrated when things don’t go well,” Dodgers manager Dave Roberts said. “I think he’s a little bit a little animated, in the sense of a couple of calls that were close.”
Ohtani served as the Dodgers’ designated hitter and lead-off batter, as usual. He went 2-for-4, walked and drove in two runs.
After advancing to third base on a single by Mookie Betts in the fourth inning, Ohtani checked with Machado about that “check swing.”
What do you think Shohei Ohtani and Manny Machado were talking about here?
https://t.co/UPoetPdK4N— Dodgers Nation (@DodgersNation) June 17, 2025
“He was asking me if I went or not,” said Machado, who seemed very aware he had swung. “It’s about time the umpires went on our side. They’ve been kind of grinding us for a little bit, not giving us any calls. So I’m glad one went our way. We got a run across the board.”
Ohtani hit 100 mph with a pitch to Arraez, but as Machado is quoted saying in the game story, the Padres know this was just the beginning for the pitcher who has a 3.01 ERA in 86 career starts.
“Not quite happy with the results overall, but I think the biggest takeaway for me is that I feel good and healthy,” Ohtani said through an interpreter. “… I did hit 100 today, so I want to see first how my body feels and how it reacts. But the expectation is to go once a week — hopefully to go a little longer every time I’m out there so that the bullpen won’t be so taxed.”
He could be a full-fledged starter by the time the Padres face the Dodgers again in August.
Maybe that will be better than facing their bullpen.
Turn the Pages
The Padres seemed confused and mostly amused by Andy Pages thinking Cease had hit him on purpose in the fourth inning.
Well, at first they weren’t amused when Pages reacted angrily and gestured toward Cease after being struck in the upper arm by a 98 mph fastball.
Andy Pages had words for Dylan Cease after getting hit by a pitch in the 4th inning.
Dodgers vs Padres getting scrappy
Via @SportsNetLA pic.twitter.com/7AqGL0okSm
— Dodgers Nation (@DodgersNation) June 17, 2025
Pages, for the record, told the Spanish-speaking media after the game, “I don’t feel like my reaction was right. But adrenaline took over for me in that moment.”
Pages said he thought at the time the throw was because the Padres thought he was stealing signs when he was on second base in the third inning.
However, no Padres players suggested that. And while Pages and other Dodgers did appear to possibly be relaying pitches by bouncing up and down when they thought Cease was throwing a breaking ball, their bouncing did not always align with breaking balls being thrown.
Further, the Dodgers had just taken a 3-2 lead, and had a runner on first base with no outs when Cease’s 0-1 pitch to Pages went awry. The situation certainly did not call for a retaliatory strike.
Cease appeared mystified by Pages’ reaction while on the mound.
“I didn’t understand it,” Cease said after the game. “It’s not going to deter me from going inside. I don’t know if I’ve ever hit a Dodger before. It just happens. It’s part of the game.”
The incident was somewhat reminiscent of the April 2024 game here in which the Padres’ Jurickson Profar initially thought the Dodgers were throwing at him. After that game, Dodgers catcher Will Smith explained they were not throwing at Profar because he was “irrelevant.”
Machado didn’t say that about Pages. Not exactly.
“They’ve got way more superstars over there,” Machado said. “(If) we want to hit somebody, they’ve got some big dogs over there we could hit.”
He went on to express some level of understanding and also compliment Pages.
“This rivalry, it’s back and forth,” Machado said. “It’s competition. Things get heated. You want to go out there and compete. He’s having a hell of a year, and he’s going to continue to have a hell of a year. … It’s just part of the game. It’s no big deal. He went his way. We went our way and just continued to compete.”
Here is what Mike Shildt wondered in the moment:
I think Mike Shildt was asking Andy Pages about his day pic.twitter.com/2NIhIIiC6q
— Julian Del Gaudio (@JulianDelGaudio) June 17, 2025
Not close enough
Cease held the Dodgers scoreless for seven innings last Tuesday at Petco Park.
Coming off his first start all season in which he looked like the dominant pitcher the Padres had come to expect, Cease began last night seeming like he would be that pitcher again.
He struck out the first five batters he faced and got the third out in the second inning on a grounder.
Eight of the 31 pitches he threw in those two innings were fastballs at least 99 mph, and one (100.4 mph) was tied for the fastest pitch of his career. He had not thrown more than five 99 mph pitches in a game this season and had not hit 100 mph since the seventh inning of his no-hitter last July 25 against the Nationals.
“I think I’ve just been in a good rhythm mechanically and had a good focus,” he said. “And, you know, Dodger Stadium, all that. Just being competitive and rearing back and kind of giving it all I have. … It’s Dodger Stadium, we’re rivals, we’re all fighting for positioning. I think it was more of just that.”
Pages doubled to start the third inning before Cease struck out Michael Conforto and got a groundout. Ohtani then doubled to bring in Pages and tie the game 1-1.
Working with a 2-1 lead after the Padres scored in the top of the fourth, Cease began the bottom of the fourth by getting Freddie Freeman on a soft lineout to Arraez at first base.
A single, a double and a single had the Dodgers up 3-2 10 pitches later.
After he hit Pages, Cease got another strikeout before three consecutive RBI singles made it 6-2.
Four of the six hits in the inning came on sliders.
“Early on, the slider, like in San Diego, it was bottomed out at the knees,” Roberts said. “The fastball was 100 at the top of the zone. And then the second time around, he started to miss up a little bit, and we got more wood on it. So I think that just the location, just the slider was up a tick higher than it was.”
Cease, as he has after many starts, especially lately, was disappointed but not discouraged.
“Stuff was good,” he said. “And for the most part, my execution was pretty good. They put the ball in play, and a lot of them found holes. It’s an unfortunate part of baseball. … It’s frustrating. You give up that many runs, you don’t really give your team a good chance. But I really am pretty happy with my execution. It’s just one of those games.”
Cease finished five innings. It was the eighth time in his 15 starts this season that he has gone five innings or less. But it was also the first time in his past 12 starts he allowed more than three runs.
Cease’s 4.69 ERA is the highest of his career 15 starts into a season.
Tidbits
- The Padres have held a lead in 15 consecutive games. They are 7-8 in those games. For the season, they have 17 comeback victories and 22 losses in which they have blown a lead.
- Bogaerts gave the Padres a 2-1 lead last night with his double in the fourth inning. He has an RBI in three straight games and a total of five RBIs in the past six games. In the 22 games before that, he drove in one run.
- Shildt went to Elias Díaz as a pinch-hitter for fellow catcher Martín Maldonado last night. It was the third game in a row someone pinch-hit for Maldonado. That was a regular practice earlier in the season, but Maldonado had been allowed to hit through four starts earlier this month. He is batting just .181 and is striking out once every three plate appearances. Díaz is batting .218 and averaging a strikeout every 3.98 plate appearances. This is why it is not surprising that the Padres are said to be asking around about catchers.
- Gavin Sheets’ double in the sixth inning extended his hitting streak to a career-high seven games. He is batting .400 (10-for-25) during the streak.
- Rookie David Morgan took over for Wandy Peralta with a runner on and nobody out in the seventh inning. Morgan stranded the runner and worked two scoreless innings. He has allowed a run in three of his nine appearances and has struck out 13 in 10⅔ innings.
- Jeff Sanders’ pregame notebook (here) included the news about Luis Campusano going back to Triple-A. Jeff also spoke to Granite Hills High alumnus Trenton Brooks, who made his first start for the Padres last night and went 0-for-2.
- Machado continued his march to 2,000 hits. His home run in the sixth inning was the 1,985th hit of his career. He has 17 games to become just the 55th player in MLB history to reach 2,000 hits before his 33rd birthday (July 6). Sanders wrote (here) about Machado leading all NL third baseman in All-Star voting.
All right, that’s it for me.
Talk to you tomorrow.
