Steve Webb
SAN DIEGO, CA — Wooboy! Talk about a high wire act. After some sloppy defense early put them in a hole that lasted all afternoon, the Dodgers were down to their last out on Sunday in San Diego. But that is when Mookie Betts came up big, hitting a game-tying homer off the Padres’ closer Josh Hader, and forcing the game into extra innings. After that the rookies took over, with Michael Busch and James Outman coming up big in the top of the 10th, allowing the Dodgers to win 5-2 and escape San Diego with a series win despite NOT playing their best baseball.
Things got off to a pretty miserable start for the Dodgers in the bottom of the 1st inning. Balls were jumping off bats against starter Julio Urias, and the ones that were in range of getting caught were clanking off gloves. Mookie Betts, in particular, misplayed a deep fly to left on a play that he’s made look routine throughout much of his career. The so-called “double” by Xander Bogaerts allowed the second San Diego run to score, and it seemed like Julio might be in for another frustrating outing.
However, you have to hand it to El Culichi. He didn’t let the rough luck in the 1st stay with him the rest of the day. After that first inning, the Dodgers’ lefty settled into a nice rhythm and didn’t allow another Padre to score for the rest of the day. And when Will Smith doubled home an unearned run in the top of the 6th, it looked like the Dodgers might just climb back into this thing.
However, even though the Dodgers would end up winning the game late, they had plenty of opportunities to do it earlier in the game. Padres’ starter Joe Musgrove was good, but when he exited after the Smith double, the Dodgers loaded up the bases, only to see pinch hitter David Peralta pop out to end the threat with the Dodgers still on the short end of a 2-1 score.
They had another scoring opportunity in the 8th, when Will Smith led off with his second double of the game and Max Muncy worked a walk. With runners on first and second, nobody out, the Dodgers once again failed to play good situational baseball and could not push the tying run across.
It seemed like the 8th might have been their last good chance to do anything, as the 9th inning belonged to Hader, who has been practically unhittable this year. And when both Trayce Thompson and Chris Taylor were retired in order, the Dodgers were on life support. However, the paramedics arrived just in time in the person of Mr. Marcus Lynn Betts.
Mookie strode to the plate working on a pretty poor game, to be honest. Besides the miscue in the field, he was 0-for-3 with two strikeouts on the afternoon. So it didn’t look, on paper at least, like the Dodgers were going to have much chance in this one.
But Hader got suddenly wild in the Betts at-bat, missing his spot badly on a couple of pitches and letting Mookie get ahead of him 3-1. Now at that point, a pitcher with less confidence in his stuff might have conceded the walk to Betts and gone after Freddie Freeman in a more favorable lefty-lefty match up. But Hader is nothing if not confident. He came back at Mookie with a middle-in sinker that Betts was able to get the barrel on.
THWACK! And just like that, the score was tied on a solo shot to left field. The momentum had suddenly shifted in the raucous Dodger fans in attendance could feel it. With the score now, tied, Caleb Ferguson pitched a perfect 9th inning to send the game into extras.
For a hot minute, it looked like the Dodgers’ weekend-long failure with runners in scoring position would end up losing them this game as well. With Freddie Freeman as the Manfred Man on second, Will Smith grounded out, but moved the runner to third. Max Muncy, who played through some sickness this weekend, struck out on a nasty screwball from reliever Brent Honeywell. So once again, the Dodgers had one out left to work with in the inning.
Michael Busch, who had pinch hit in the 8th, was the Dodgers last hope. And the rookie did not disappoint. He worked a full count and then got a fastball out over the plate that he could handle. He ripped the pitch into left field for a solid single, allowing Freeman to trot across home with the go-ahead run.
Now, that would have been good enough, but the late-night fun was just getting started. With Busch now on first, James Outman stepped in. Honeywell got Outman to swing at a changeup out of the zone on the first pitch, but then he got a bit greedy. He went back to the exact same pitch, and this time Outman didn’t miss. He pulled the ball deep to right field and Fernando Tatis could only watch the ball sail over his head and with it, the Padres hopes of winning the series.
Evan Phillips shut the Padres down in order in the bottom of the 10th and that was that. The Dodgers, now 21-14, leave town in first place and put one more game between themselves and the Padres.
So yeah, it was a good day.
