The Los Angeles Dodgers and San Diego Padres split the first two games of their three-game series, setting up Wednesday’s rubber match.
It also represented a battle for first place in the National League West. Whichever team won the series would leave with a division lead.
For the Dodgers, it took two straight wins after dropping the opener, but they pulled off the series victory.
Dodgers 3, Padres 0: key takeaways
Shohei Ohtani does Shohei Ohtani things
Shohei Ohtani continues to do the incredible in a Dodgers uniform. On the first pitch of the game, Ohtani hit a leadoff home run, his 20th for the Dodgers since joining them in 2024, and the 27th of his career.
After putting his team up 1-0 in the first, Ohtani went on to start his night on the mound with three perfect innings. That ended in the fourth inning when he walked Fernando Tatis Jr. and allowed a single to Gavin Sheets, but the right-hander still worked a scoreless inning.
Ohtani ran into some trouble in the fifth inning by allowing a pair of singles with no outs, and then he walked a batter to load the bases with one out. But Ohtani escaped the jam by getting Tatis to hit into a double play on the first pitch.
In total, Ohtani went 1-for-3 with two runs scored and an RBI at the plate while also throwing five shutout innings on the mound, allowing three hits, striking out four and walking two.
Ohtani now owns a 0.73 ERA across 49 innings while also posting an .885 on-base plus slugging in 173 at-bats. Wednesday did represent Ohtani’s first start this season of not completing at least six innings.
Dodgers offense manufactured insurance runs
The Dodgers extended their lead in the second inning, starting with a leadoff double from Max Muncy. Will Smith followed with a single to put runners at the corners, and then Teoscar Hernandez hit a sacrifice fly to double their lead.
That score remained until the fifth inning when Ohtani and Mookie Betts worked walks. Ohtani ended up scoring when Kyle Tucker singled with one out.
Hernández added one more to the score in the ninth inning by crushing a home run to the second deck.
Dodgers bullpen completes shutout
After Ohtani’s five innings, the Dodgers’ bullpen combined to shut the Padres down the rest of the way. Edgardo Henriquez worked the sixth, Blake Treinen had the seventh, Kyle Hurt pitched the eighth, and Will Klein finished it off in the ninth.
They allowed just two hits as a unit while adding four strikeouts and no walks. Both hits were allowed by Hurt, who recorded a double play to get the Dodgers out of the inning.
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