
Los Angeles, CA. The Padres have lost 7 straight games at Dodger Stadium and have a record of 1-13 vs the Dodgers, going back to August 24, 2021. In that span against the Padres, the Dodgers have out-scored them 72-29. Dodger pitching has a 1.80 ERA in that stretch. The Padres pitching staff has a 5.19 ERA in that same time. This is mind boggling for a team that is now 2.5 games behind LA and has a 3 game lead at the top of the NL wild card. They are better than that. But obviously they are not proving that on the field with LA.
San Diego sent 2018 Cy Young winner Blake Snell, 0-5, 5.60 ERA, to the hill looking to break this horrid run against their NL West rival. The Padres faced Tony Gonsolin, 9-0, 1.58 ERA. Not an easy task.
Snell gave up a second inning first pitch HR to Max Muncy and that was it. He got out of trouble three times via the strikeout and kept the Padres in the game. He was replaced with Craig Stammen who gave up a Cody Bellinger classic high and far home-run in the sixth inning to put the Dodgers back in the lead.
At the same time Gonsolin showed why he is at the top of the pile in the NL as a starter. His line tonight was 7.2 innings, 4 hits, 1 run, o walks, 8 strikeouts and 1 home-run. He is now 10-0 with a 1.54 ERA at the midway point of the season.
The Dodgers left 9 runners on base and struck out 17 times tonight. But guess what? They figured out how to score more than San Diego winning 5-1. But only because of Gonsolin holding the Padres to one run. The Dodgers scored 4 of their 5 runs between the 6th and 8th inning.
The Padres now can only hope to win the next two games for a split of this series and remain where they were before coming to LA, 1.5 games back. I’m sure the boys in blue will make that very difficult for them as they put two lefties on the mound first with Tyler Anderson on Saturday followed by Clayton Kershaw in the Sunday finale. San Diego will send You Darvish to the hill tomorrow and MacKenzie Gore on Sunday.
