SAN DIEGO -- The Padres and Dodgers met on three straight nights this week with first place on the line. Los Angeles won the rubber match on Wednesday, 4-0, behind a homer and five scoreless innings from Shohei Ohtani. The Padres, meanwhile, had their chances but never cashed them in, falling 1 1/2 games back in the early NL West standings.
Here’s some instant reaction from Petco Park:
A litmus test of sorts
The first two games of this series were decided by the finest of margins. The Padres won by a run on Monday with Mason Miller nailing down a dramatic save. They lost by a run on Tuesday, with Miller’s error proving costly.
On Wednesday? No Miller. And this one felt a bit more one-sided.
The Dodgers’ stars were stars -- Ohtani was masterful, Freddie Freeman hit two doubles, Mookie Betts reached three times.
The Padres’ stars, meanwhile, did not perform like stars. That’s a recurring theme this season. (Not to mention that Ohtani’s homer might have come with a cost to one of those stars, as Jackson Merrill appeared to injure himself on the play.)
“We were ready for a test,” said Padres manager Craig Stammen. “It’s always fun to battle against the best. We battled as tough as we could, [but] came out on the short end of the stick.
“We definitely had some opportunities to break it open. … We’ve got to come up with a hit in that situation, or a good at-bat. And we just weren’t able to tonight.”
The Dodgers remain NL West favorites until further notice. But there are reasons to believe these Padres can make things interesting this summer. Those reasons hinge largely on getting more production from the big bats in the middle of the order. Speaking of which …
Enough already, Tatis needs to slug
Bases loaded, Padres down three, Ohtani on the mound -- now that would have been quite the moment for Fernando Tatis Jr. to hit his first homer of the season.
Of course, if you’ve watched the Padres this season, you’ve probably felt that dozens of times already. But here we are. It’s May 20, and Tatis still hasn’t homered.
As it were, Tatis chased a first-pitch sweeper out of the strike zone. He bounced to short for an inning-ending double play, ending the Padres’ best chance to score against Ohtani in the bottom of the fifth.
That just about sums it up with Tatis: He’s been hitting the ball hard. But he’s usually hitting it hard into the ground. And when he pulls it, he’s almost always hitting it into the ground. Tatis’ 6.8% air-pull rate ranks 254th out of 262 qualified hitters, putting him in the ranks of various slap hitters and singles hitters.
“He’s working every day to try to figure that out,” Stammen said. “[It’s] natural for anyone to press when they’re trying to get out of a slump. I think we’re seeing it from a couple guys -- with early swings, swinging at a lot of things they don’t normally swing at. It’s tough. This game is a mentally tough game, especially when you’re struggling.”
The Padres need more from Tatis. They need homers and booming doubles off the wall. Maybe not all of the time. But … occasionally, at least. That his homerless drought has lingered this long remains inexplicable.
This wasn’t Vásquez’s best, but he was still OK
When Randy Vásquez has it, he’s a joy to watch. But when Randy Vásquez doesn’t have it -- as was the case on Wednesday night -- he generally finds a way to keep the Padres within striking distance. Because he gets big outs when he needs them.
Ohtani took Vásquez deep with the first pitch of the game. The Dodgers sprayed hard contact and deep fly balls all over the ballpark on Vásquez. And yet, he’d only allowed two runs at the time of his exit in the fifth inning, before an inherited runner later scored.
“After that first pitch to Ohtani, I felt like I was able to keep my plan of attack,” Vásquez said, through interpreter Jorge Merlos.
In total Vásquez allowed three runs over 4 1/3 innings without a strikeout. It wasn’t a good performance. Maybe his worst performance of the year. But it’s a feature of these kinds of Vásquez starts where you find yourself saying something like: “Huh, the Padres are only down 3-0? Doesn’t it feel like more?” And yet it isn’t more. Because Vásquez has made sure of it.