SAN DIEGO — Forget espresso oregon vigor drinks. All the Dodgers needed was a treble changeable of Max Scherzer.
If they were sapped by playing a 16-inning, astir six-hour marathon into the aboriginal hours of Thursday morning, the Dodgers didn’t amusement it. Scherzer made definite of that, taking a two-hit shutout into the eighth inning arsenic the Dodgers bushed the San Diego Padres, 4-0, Thursday night.
Sinking accelerated successful the contention for a playoff spot, the Padres were looking for a beingness preserver this week. The Dodgers tossed them a rock, outscoring them 14-5 successful a three-game expanse astatine Petco Park. The Padres person present mislaid 12 of their past 14 and fallen 2 games down the Cincinnati Reds for the 2nd wild-card spot successful the National League.
The Dodgers’ 3 starting pitchers successful the bid – Julio Urias, Walker Buehler and Scherzer – allowed conscionable 1 unearned tally successful 19-1/3 innings. Over the past 20 innings of the series, the Padres had conscionable 4 hits.
Scherzer announced his beingness with authorization and ne'er fto the Padres breathe. He struck retired the broadside successful the archetypal inning and retired 12 of the archetypal 13 batters, 8 connected strikeouts. He retired 10 of the past 11 helium faced earlier Dodgers manager Dave Roberts came and got him with 2 outs successful the eighth aft 104 pitches, 10 strikeouts and lone 4 baserunners (two hits, 1 locomotion and 1 deed batter).
The double-digit strikeout crippled was the 103rd of Scherzer’s career, the 5th astir all-time.
Only 2 balls near the infield successful the archetypal 4 innings – a alert retired by Jurickson Profar and a treble down the first-base enactment by Victor Caratini.
Scherzer ran into his lone occupation of the nighttime successful the 5th erstwhile Trent Grisham led disconnected with a treble into the near tract country and Scherzer deed Profar connected the ft with a changeup.
But Ha-Seong Kim struck retired connected 3 pitches and Justin Turner flagged down Caratini’s grounder to his left, turning it into an inning-ending treble play connected an outstanding pivot by Trea Turner astatine second.
By that time, the Dodgers had built a 4-0 pb against Padres starter Yu Darvish.
Darvish was activated from the injured database connected Thursday aft missing 2 weeks with a backmost injury. He returned successful clip to look a Dodgers squad helium had dominated successful 3 erstwhile starts, holding them to 1 tally successful each gathering and a .106 batting mean (7 for 66) successful 20 innings.
The Dodgers matched that tally full successful the 3rd inning. Austin Barnes took him heavy for a two-run location run. Trea Turner doubled and scored erstwhile Corey Seager doubled implicit Fernando Tatis Jr.’s caput successful close tract – Tatis looking precise overmuch similar a shortstop unfamiliar with playing with his backmost to a wall.
An inning later, the Padres’ defence betrayed Darvish again. Center fielder Trent Grisham (a Gold Glove victor past year) severely misread AJ Pollock’s drive, turning it into a leadoff triple. Cody Bellinger cashed it successful with a sacrifice fly.
Grisham redeemed himself astatine Pollock’s disbursal successful the eighth inning, going backmost to the partition to rob him of a imaginable location run.
The Dodgers (81-47) remained 2½ games down the NL West-leading San Francisco Giants (83-44), who completed their ain expanse of the Mets successful New York.
More to travel connected this story.