After dropping the series opener with little offense and poor pitching, the Los Angeles Dodgers brought the bats in their second game against the San Diego Padres to pick up the victory.
With the series now tied, the two teams are set to play a rubber match on Sunday afternoon, which concludes the series before the two clubs face off again in a four-game set starting on July 2 at Dodger Stadium.
Dodgers 15, Padres 3: key takeaways
Dodgers offense explodes in sixth inning
With a tie game entering the sixth inning, the Dodgers’ offense went off for nine runs, powered by three home runs, all in the same inning.
The rally was started with a double from Freddie Freeman, and then Max Muncy reached on a fielding error that gave the Dodgers a 2-1 lead. Tommy Edman followed with a run-scoring triple to extend the lead to 3-1.
Kyle Tucker then crushed a no-doubt homer on the ninth pitch of his at-bat, and Dalton Rushing homered to go back-to-back, putting the Dodgers up 6-1.
Alex Freeland walked, Shohei Ohtani singled, and then Andy Pages walked to load the bases. Freeman drove in a run with a groundout to second base.
Then the inning was capped off by a three-run homer from Mookie Betts to give the Dodgers their ninth run of the inning and 10th of the game. Up to that point, Betts was the only Dodgers player not to reach base.
In addition, Betts has now homered in three consecutive games.
The Dodgers scored their first run in the second inning with some help from the Padres’ outfield defense. Fernando Tatis Jr. tried to make a diving catch, but missed, leading to a triple from Muncy. He then scored on a double from Edman, which came as the result of Jackson Merrill getting a bad read on the ball.
They added four more in the eighth inning, starting when they loaded the bases with singles from Ohtani and Freeman, and a walk from Pages. Muncy hit an infield single to bring in the 11th run, Edman drove in a run with a ground out, and Tucker singled in a pair of runs to give them 14 for the night.
Ryan Ward drove in the 15th run of the game.
Every player in the Dodgers lineup scored at least one run in the game, while three of them (Betts, Edman and Tucker) drove in multiple runs.
Freeman and Tucker both had three hits, and Tucker also drove in four runs.
Yoshinobu Yamamoto turns in quality start
Yoshinobu Yamamoto was not at his absolute best, but still managed to turn in an excellent start. The right-hander threw six innings of two-run ball, allowing five hits with four strikeouts and two walks.
He allowed a solo homer to Gavin Sheets that tied the game in the fifth, and then Sheets got him again with an RBI single in the sixth after the Dodgers’ offensive outburst. That was set up by a walk to Samad Taylor and single to Jackson Merrill.
Kyle Hurt took over in the seventh, but he was ineffective. He allowed two walks and two singles, which scored a run for the Padres and loaded the bases. Alex Vesia took over and recorded the final two outs of the inning.
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