Steve Webb
Game 42, 5/12/2024: Dodgers 0, Padres 4
SAN DIEGO, CA — It’s going to take a while. Anybody expecting Cy Young-caliber starts out of Walker Buehler right out of the gate as he returns to the mound should give up that notion real quick. Even with a bunch of rehabs starts, Buetane is just not firing on all cylinders at the moment. Yu Darvish, on the other hand, was in complete control at Petco Park on this Mother’s Day matinee. The Dodgers were no match for the crafty veteran and the Padres rode four home runs to a 4-0 shutout victory on Sunday afternoon.
The trouble started for Buehler almost immediately. He got a flyout from leadoff man Luis Arraez to start the bottom of the first, but things went south after that. Fernando Tatis Jr. crushed a 2-0 fastball into the centerfield seats to get the Padres on the board. Then, Jake Cronenworth jacked a pitch in the same area that looked at first like it was in play. After a bit of confusion, things got sorted out and Cronenworth was credited for a homer and the Friars were up 2-0 three hitters into the game.
Buehler gave up another run in the bottom of the fourth before exiting the game. His totals for the day: 3.1 IP, 5 H, 3 ER, 2 BB, 2 K. In other words, nothing to write home to Mom about.
Ryan Yarbrough cleaned up Buehler’s mess in the fourth, but Gus Varland would surrender one more run on a Xander Boegarts solo job in the fifth to get us to the final 4-0 score for the afternoon.
Meanwhile, Yu Darvish was having one of those days. You know, the kind where nobody can touch his vast array of bafflling pitches. It wasn’t until two outs in the top of the fifth that the Dodgers even had a baserunner, and while they had a couple of scoring chances late, they just never could get anything going against Darvish. The righthander tossed seven innings of two-hit shutout baseball before leaving after seven to the appreciative cheers of the Petco faithful. And though they managed a couple of knocks against the relievers on Sunday, the Dodgers never mounted much of anything that even resembled a threat all afternoon.
Bummer. Oh well, having now dropped two straight series to San Diego, the Dodgers now trail their southern neighbors 5-3, so they’ll have to win four of the remaining five games with the Padres to win the season series. Not ideal, but I seriously doubt there will be any tie-breaker scenarios between these two teams that we need to worry about.
Anyway, on to the Dodgers’ real in-state rival on Monday when the team opens up a three-gamer against the scuffling and banged up Giants. As of this writing, the Giants are 19-23, eight games behind the first place Dodgers. The series kicks off with Yoshinobu Yamamoto on the mound for the Boys in Blue. The Dodger hitters will try to break out of this little mini-funk against Giants’ new flamethrowing starter Jordan Hicks. Let’s right the ship with a win.
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