The Dodgers’ 11-game home run came to an end Wednesday night, and it ended in familiar fashion for San Diego: a 5-1 Padres win that flipped the script after Los Angeles had shut them out a night earlier.
For three innings, it looked like another tight one. Yoshinobu Yamamoto and Robbie Ray both worked clean early stretches, with Yamamoto carving through three shutout frames on only 36 pitches. Ray, by contrast, needed 70 pitches to get through the same span.
Then the game broke open in the fourth.
Yamamoto started the inning by brushing Dustin Harris with an inside pitch, and Manny Machado made sure the Padres weren’t going away quietly. Machado drove a two-run homer to center field, putting San Diego in front and changing the feel of the night in one swing.
Los Angeles answered right away. Teoscar Hernández and Kyle Tucker opened the bottom of the fourth with back-to-back singles, and Andy Pages followed with his first hit since coming off the injured list, a bloop single to center.
Ray was able to get Max Muncy to fly out to shallow center, but his night ended after 84 pitches in 3 1/3 innings. The Dodgers got on the board when Tommy Edman lifted a sacrifice fly, and after Mookie Betts drew a four-pitch walk to load the bases with two outs, Shohei Ohtani came up empty on a 3-2 fastball from David Morgan at 99 miles per hour, leaving the inning with more damage untapped.
San Diego answered again in the fifth, and this time it came with pressure, speed and a little messiness. Ethan Salas and Fernando Tatis Jr. singled to start the frame, Harris tried to bunt, and the ball went right back to Yamamoto.
The throw to third was errant, allowing Salas to score. Machado then added a sacrifice fly to center to bring in Tatis and push his RBI total to three on the night.
Yamamoto’s night was done after six innings, and that alone told part of the story. It was the first time in September he didn’t go at least seven, and it was also the first time since September 2 that he allowed two or more earned runs.
He struck out four, his fewest since fanning three Boston Red Sox on August 1. For the regular season, Yamamoto finishes with a 2.53 ERA, 182 strikeouts and 185 innings.
The Dodgers’ bullpen kept San Diego quiet until the ninth, when Blake Treinen gave up an RBI single to Freddy Fermin that let Samad Taylor score and made it 5-1.
There were still a few bright spots in the loss. Hernández kept rolling with another three-hit game, his third of the month, going 3-for-4 with three singles and nudging his season average to .270 for the first time since June 30.
Pages also had three hits in his second game back from the injured list, giving him his first multi-hit performance since August 17 against the Colorado Rockies. Ohtani, in his first game off the injured list, went 1-for-4 with a single, a walk and two strikeouts.
The defeat leaves the Dodgers two games behind the Milwaukee Brewers for the top seed in the National League playoff picture. They remain four games ahead of the Atlanta Braves for a first-round bye, and their magic number to lock up that bye is still 1.
Los Angeles closes out its home schedule Thursday against San Diego at 7:10 p.m. PT on SportsNet LA before heading to San Francisco for the final regular season series. Tyler Glasnow is set to face Nick Pivetta.
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