Good morning from Los Angeles,
It is tempting to get into the drama of last night straight away.
We will get to it.
But there is a more pressing issue brought up by last night’s game — and actually by quite a few games that immediately preceded it.
When this series against the Dodgers is finished, the Padres will still have 88 games remaining. And they need to figure out how to hold a lead.
Last night’s 8-6 loss was the 16th consecutive game in which the Padres had a lead at some point. They are 7-9 in those games.
No team has played more games in which they have either won after trailing or lost after leading.
The Padres have played 40 such games — 17 comeback victories, 23 blown-lead losses.
Let’s call them rollercoaster games. The Padres have to figure out how to get off the ride.
“Holding a lead is a big thing,” Jake Cronenworth said late last night. “Two is extending that lead later in the game, even in the middle innings. I think we have scored a lot of runs at the beginning of these games. I think it’s extending that lead throughout the middle of the innings.”
Yes, Jeremiah Estrada allowed five runs in the sixth inning, which turned a 3-3 game into an 8-3 game.
But this was a game the Dodgers were practically inviting the Padres to put away by scoring even a little more. The Dodgers were engaging in a bullpen game and didn’t really want to have to use their high-leverage relievers, who have worked a fair amount recently.
Maybe all it would have taken to alter the course of the game is Xander Bogaerts driving in a run and extending the third inning with runners at first and third and one out instead of grounding into a double play to end the threat with the Padres having taken just a 3-2 lead.
You can read in my game story (here) about how the Padres got the lead, lost it, regained it, lost it and then fought back before failing to capitalize on opportunities again late.
“We created traffic all night,” Bogaerts said. “We just didn’t do our job.”
Now, the drama
A night after Andy Pages took issue with Dylan Cease hitting him with a pitch and then copped to having overreacted, things got even more heated in last night’s game.
Fernando Tatis Jr. took a 95 mph sinker from Lou Trivino in the back in the top of the third inning. Tatis dropped his bat and walked slowly to first base, clearly unhappy but without any outward expression of anger.
With one out and nobody on in the bottom of the third, Padres starter Randy Vásquez threw a first-pitch fastball inside to Shohei Ohtani that the Dodgers’ star stepped away from. Vásquez’s next pitch, a second straight 94 mph fastball, went even further inside and this time hit Ohtani about six inches above his right knee.
Ohtani hopped away from the plate and after a few steps shook his head several times up and down as if to acknowledge he knew what had just happened and why it had.
As he stood at first base laughing and talking with Luis Arraez, the umpires met and then issued warnings to both teams.
Padres manager Mike Shildt did not react. Dodgers manager Dave Roberts did.
And despite being told to not go on the field, Roberts stepped out and was immediately ejected. He then put on quite a show.
Dave Roberts has been ejected pic.twitter.com/q9VfUYIYGa
— Al Scott (@AlScott1998) June 18, 2025
“We ended up hitting Tatis, unintentional in that spot,” Roberts said. “We don’t want a guy on base, certainly him bleeding into their guys in the middle part of the order. And then at that point in time, Shohei comes up with the base open, and Vásquez took one shot at him and then hit him again. And it’s very hard to miss that bad with a right-handed pitcher. So for me, it’s, if you’re going to do it, own it. And then I just … didn’t feel a warning on both sides was warranted. And so I just wanted to know an explanation. I wanted an explanation on their thought process. I didn’t come in hot. I just wanted to know why they issued (the warnings).
“I realized later I got tossed, which I didn’t understand or appreciate. … I wanted an explanation, what’s going on forward and their decision making, and I got run. And so for me, it’s just there was no consistency. I just wanted feel for the game, and that’s what I asked for, and I feel we didn’t get it.”
Roberts reiterated he “absolutely” felt Vásquez hit Ohtani on purpose.
Vásquez, not surprisingly, said he was merely trying to pitch inside.
(He struck out Ohtani in the first inning going inside only on the fourth of six pitches and struck him out on five pitches in the fifth without going any further in than the inner third of the plate.)
“Things happen in baseball,” Shildt said. “I mean, guys are trying to pitch in. Guys are looking to make quality pitches. Trivino got ‘Tati’ to open the game when he was the opener in the game at our place (last week) and got him again today, and that didn’t feel real good. Just trying to make quality pitches and fight for the inner half of the plate, and the ball got away from Vásquez.”
Roberts was not pleased to learn that after he departed, Shildt had a conversation with Hudson.
“I see the opposing manager get the same courtesy of explanation and stays in the game,” Roberts said. “So there’s just no consistency with that.”
Shildt did, indeed, make a quick walk to the grass and spend a few seconds with Hudson.
“He just asked about the warnings,” Hudson told a pool reporter. “He asked about pitching inside. I said, ‘We’re not taking that away.’ And he left.”
Shildt did not have an issue, either, when Matt Sauer hit Jose Iglesias with a sinker in the seventh inning and was not ejected.
“It doesn’t taste great, it doesn’t look great,” Shildt said. “It’s one of those things that we want to separate competition from intent. And in that particular moment, I just thought a ball got away from him based on his initial reaction and just based on his ball movement. And, yeah, it’s unfortunate. And our guys weren’t thrilled with it. I’m not thrilled with it, but I also understood. I wasn’t going to go out and make a case that, quite frankly, didn’t think was needed to be made.”
Shildt did go out to talk to the umpires the next inning to ask about their thought process and to let them know the Padres weren’t thrilled their guy got hit.
“That’s their call,” he said. “It didn’t feel good on our side, but candidly understood it.”
Hudson told the pool reporter, “There was no intent in him getting hit there, in our judgment.”
The best revenge
Pages caught the video that made the rounds on social media of Shildt shouting at him from the dugout on Monday night.
I wrote about the Padres’ reaction and included the video in yesterday’s newsletter.
Here it is again:
I think Mike Shildt was asking Andy Pages about his day pic.twitter.com/2NIhIIiC6q
— Julian Del Gaudio (@JulianDelGaudio) June 17, 2025
But the 24-year-old Pages said it was not payback that he went 4-for-4 with two home runs last night.
“I actually saw it this morning,” he said. “I didn’t pay much attention to it. I left yesterday’s game behind, and I focused on today.”
Decisions, decisions
This time, Shildt let Vásquez face Ohtani a third time and finish five innings by getting Mookie Betts on a fly ball.
But Shildt still pulled the right-hander after just 68 pitches last night.
“Vásquez did a nice job for five, navigated through the lineup very well,” Shildt said. “We’re sitting there and looking at trying to maybe squeeze another inning. But Pages has gotten him twice. … Knowing that (sixth) inning is starting and (Pages) is looming in the four hole when we’ve got a rested guy in Estrada that has pitched one time in five games and is one of the best relievers in baseball, and it’s time to go turn it over to a rested bullpen.”
The issue is not that Estrada surrendered five straight hits without recording an out and was charged with five runs.
It can be argued Shildt made the correct call and simply had it not work out because the Dodgers had some excellent at-bats and Estrada missed some locations.
Vásquez does see quite an uptick in production against him the third time through the order.
Freddie Freeman, who was up first in the sixth, had singled against him. Will Smith, up second, had doubled. And Pages was certainly seeing him well.
But there is a larger discussion that has to happen here at some point. Probably soon.
Shildt has said recently that starters need to go deeper in games more consistently. That was in the context of the bullpen having had to cover so many innings.
Just seven times in the Padres past 20 games has a starting pitcher made it into the sixth inning. Just four times has a pitcher finished six innings.
Vásquez was pulled with two outs in the fifth inning having thrown 70 pitches in his previous start. In that game, Shildt brought in Adrián Morejón to face Ohtani.
Morejón retired Ohtani before leaving a man on for Estrada in the sixth inning and having that turn into a three-run inning.
Again, in a vacuum, that still may have been the right move.
It worked for the Padres when, three starts ago, June 6 in Milwaukee, Shildt took out Vásquez with two outs in fifth inning when he had not allowed a run but was about to face Christian Yelich a third time with runners on the corners. Wandy Peralta ended that inning and the Padres went on to a victory.
But turning Vásquez’s game over to the bullpen has now blown up two times in a row.
Shildt was asked if Vásquez is close to having earned the trust to get another inning in such a situation.
“No question,” Shildt said. “He earned it tonight. I mean, he earned the top (two) of the order tonight. He got through it tonight. He’s at a pitch count where he goes back out and runs into traffic, now we’re going to have to make a move at a certain area. Why not just start a clean inning with one of the best right-handed relievers — or relievers period. But yeah, to answer your question, he earned it tonight. He got the top (two) and we go from there. So he’s getting more.”
Powerful idea
Home runs are the quickest way to score.
The Padres don’t hit many. The Dodgers do.
Almost everything else was equal last night.
Both teams were 3-for-10 with runners in scoring position. Both scored a run on a sacrifice fly.
But in addition to Bogaerts’ killer double plays, the big difference was that the Dodgers hit three home runs and the Padres one.
The Dodgers lead the major leagues with 115 home runs. The Padres rank 27th with 62 home runs.
The Dodgers lead the major leagues with 413 runs scored, and 44.3% of those runs have come via home runs (seventh-highest ratio). The Padres rank 19th with 304 runs scored, and 28% of those runs have been driven in by homers (second-lowest ratio).
First one
The Padres’ home run last night was hit by a newcomer.
Trenton Brooks, who was pinch-hitting for Brandon Lockridge in the seventh inning, followed Iglesias to the plate and sent his first big-league homer over the wall in right field to get the Padres to within three runs at 8-5.
“Surreal,” said Brooks, a Granite Hills High School alumnus. “It was really cool. I’m speechless. … I don’t really remember it, to be super honest with you.”
Brooks, drafted by Cleveland in the 17th round in 2016, made his major league debut and appeared in 12 games for the Giants last season. He signed a minor-league deal with the Padres in the offseason and was recalled from Triple-A on Sunday.
“You work your whole life, and I spent a lot of time in the minor leagues and just kind of kept grinding every single day,” Brooks said when asked about the significance of the homer. “So it means a lot. It was a really cool experience. It was cool.”
Brooks’ wife, two children and his parents were at Dodger Stadium. His wife and children flew to Arizona from their home in Nashville on Sunday. Brooks’ parents made the drive to Dodger Stadium from their East County home.
Said Brooks: “Shout out Alpine.”
Tidbits
- Arraez was 3-for-5 last night. It was his 11th game this season with at least three hits, tied for most in the major leagues. He also has nine two-hit games. But he has 23 hitless games, his most ever through his first 66 games in a season. His .280 batting average is his lowest (by 23 points) this far into any of the six seasons he has played at least 66 games.
- Gavin Sheets was 1-for-3 with two walks and a sacrifice fly last night. He is batting .393 (11-for-28) with a .457 on-base percentage during a career-high eight-game hitting streak.
- Machado was also 1-for-3 with two walks and is now 14 hits from 2,000 in his career.
- In addition to being hit by the pitch, Tatis was 0-for-2 with two walks (one intentional). He has a .550 OBP during a nine-game on-base streak.
- Iglesias was replaced at shortstop by Tyler Wade in the bottom of the seventh. X-rays on Iglesias’ wrist were negative.
- Cronenworth, who on Monday had a 13-game on-base streak ended, was 1-for-3 with a walk and stole a base last night.
- Yu Darvish threw in the bullpen yesterday and is scheduled to face hitters in a simulated game on Friday at Petco Park. After throwing 18 pitches in one “inning” in a simulated game last Saturday, Darvish will likely work about twice as long Friday.
All right, that’s it for me.
Talk to you tomorrow.
Originally Published: June 18, 2025 at 6:30 AM PDT
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