Dodgers rally late to beat Padres behind Freeman's multi-homer night
· Yahoo Sports
SAN DIEGO — The Dodgers looked flat 24 hours earlier, shut out by the Padres in a tense 1-0 loss that briefly cost them control of the National League West. By Tuesday night at Petco Park, they looked like themselves again, resilient, relentless and, when necessary, dramatic.
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And at the center of it all stood Freddie Freeman.
After battling through a rough stretch while feeling under the weather and going 0-for-16 over his previous five games, Freeman erupted for his first multi-homer game of the season, powering the Dodgers to a 5-4 comeback victory over the Padres. The win pushed the Dodgers to 30-19 and back into first place in the NL West by a half-game.
For Freeman, the turnaround began before first pitch.
“Trying to get rid of the cut swing,” Freeman said afterward. “Cage work was a lot better today and to see instant results in the first at bat definitely helped the mind.”
The adjustment showed up immediately.
Shohei Ohtani opened the game by ripping a leadoff double into left field, and Freeman wasted no time ambushing Griffin Canning’s 96 mph fastball, launching it over the left-field wall for a quick 2-0 Dodgers lead.
The Padres answered just as fast. Manny Machado tied the game in the bottom of the first with a two-run homer off Emmet Sheehan, setting the tone for an uneasy night for the young right-hander.
Sheehan never fully settled in. In the third inning, Miguel Andújar punished another mistake for a two-run homer, his second in as many nights, giving the Padres a 4-2 lead.
The Dodgers have been careful with their rotation all season, and Tuesday reinforced why. Sheehan, pitching on four days’ rest for the first time this year, lasted only four innings and 67 pitches.
His final line reflected the inconsistency: four innings, five hits, four earned runs, one walk, two strikeouts and two home runs allowed.
It also underscored why the Dodgers recently added Eric Lauer in an effort to preserve a six-man rotation and avoid overextending arms early in the season.
But while Sheehan labored, the Dodgers’ offense kept chipping away.
Teoscar Hernández opened the fifth with a double and eventually scored on Ohtani’s RBI groundout to trim the deficit to one. Then Freeman struck again in the sixth, hammering an 81 mph splitter from Jeremiah Estrada into the right-field seats to tie the game at 4-4.
Two swings. Two home runs. A superstar looking like himself again.
“I focused more on my mechanics and finishing higher,” Freeman explained.
The bullpen took it from there.
Tanner Scott delivered perhaps the game’s most underrated moment in the seventh inning. After inheriting a two-on, two-out jam from Blake Treinen, Scott got Ramón Laureano to line out to left field, where Hernández tracked it down to preserve the tie.
Scott then returned for a clean eighth inning, finishing 1⅓ hitless innings that gave the Dodgers a chance to steal the game late.
That opportunity nearly slipped away in the top of the eighth. Ohtani doubled for the second time in the game and advanced to third on Mookie Betts’ flyout, but Freeman struck out and Kyle Tucker grounded out to strand the go-ahead run.
It only delayed the chaos.
Facing Mason Miller in the ninth inning, arguably the most overpowering reliever in baseball, Max Muncy worked a one-out walk before Dave Roberts inserted Alex Call as a pinch-runner.
Moments later, the inning cracked open.
Call broke early attempting to steal second, and Miller’s throw to first sailed away. Suddenly, Call was standing at third base with one out and the Dodgers 90 feet from taking the lead.
That brought Andy Pages to the plate for an at-bat that immediately felt bigger than May baseball.
Miller attacked him with everything: triple-digit fastballs touching 102 mph, devastating sliders in the upper-80s, pure violence from the mound. Pages refused to blink.
Freeman watched from the dugout in disbelief.
“That at bat was incredible,” Freeman said. “To foul off 102, back-to-back sliders at 87-88 — one of the best at-bats I’ve ever seen.”
On the ninth pitch of the battle, Pages finally won it, lifting a sacrifice fly deep enough to score Call and put the Dodgers ahead 5-4.
“Doing that against a pitcher of that caliber is obviously really good,” Pages said, “but the most important thing is to win, and I felt very confident the whole time through facing him.”
Roberts saw the confrontation in even simpler terms.
“It was him versus Mason Miller, and he wasn’t gonna lose that battle,” Roberts said. “Mason’s the best in the game right now. And Andy, he willed himself to do something productive in that at-bat.”
The Dodgers still needed three outs, and Will Klein delivered them without issue. Three up, three down. First career save.
Los Angeles Dodgers pitcher Will Klein (61) pumps his fist after the Dodgers beat the San Diego Padres at Petco Park.Denis Poroy-Imagn Images
Los Angeles Dodgers pitcher Will Klein (61) pumps his fist after the Dodgers beat the San Diego Padres at Petco Park.
On consecutive nights, the Dodgers forced Miller into high-pressure innings. Tuesday, unlike Monday, they broke through.
Now they head into Wednesday’s rubber match with Ohtani taking the mound for his eighth start of the season, and returning to the lineup as a hitter after sitting out offensively in his previous three pitching appearances.
The Dodgers have spent much of this season searching for consistency. On Tuesday night, they found something else entirely: a reminder of how dangerous they can be when their stars rise to the moment.