Dodgers roll halted by Padres, raising new concern before playoffs…
Entering this week, the Dodgers gave the impression to be rolling towards the postseason.
They had received 14 of 17 games. They had clinched the National League West division crown. They separated themselves for a top-two NL seed. And that they had lastly gotten the entirety of their roster –– from a beforehand slumping offense to a once-scuffling bullpen to a star-studded rotation –– synced up and playing properly at the same time.
There was, after all, one caveat to all that success.
The team had gotten an exceedingly smooth late-season schedule, having not confronted a fellow contender in virtually a month.
Teoscar Hernandez tosses his bat after putting out during the fifth inning of the Dodgers’ 4-2 loss to the Padres on Sept. 25, 2026 in Los Angeles. AP Photo/Mark J. Terrill
Thus, this week’s go to of the San Diego Padres felt like one thing of a pre-October check, if not a preview of a possible postseason matchup.
And with a 4-2 rubber-match loss on Thursday evening at Chavez Ravine, it was one they concerningly failed of their last true tune-up before the playoffs.
The Dodgers, after all, will downplay the significance of this week’s outcomes. They received 7-0 with a bullpen game on Tuesday evening. They felt Wednesday’s 5-1 defeat was nearer than the final score mirrored. In the big-picture, Thursday’s setback didn’t damage them both –– particularly after they clinched a first-round playoff bye pregame due to the Atlanta Braves’ loss to the Cincinnati Reds.
There was also a matter of motivation, with the Padres clinching their very own postseason spot by successful each of the last two games.
Nevertheless, dropping this sequence continued an more and more troublesome development for the two-time defending champions.
On the season, the Dodgers are just 25-28 against above-.500 groups presently on observe to make the playoffs this yr (excluding the sub-.500 Astros and Rangers, who’re presently tied atop the AL West).
In the last two months, that mark contains an eye-popping 2-14 rut in such matchups.
Over that interval, there have been sequence sweeps at the palms of the Red Sox, Cubs and Braves. There was just a lone win in a dispiriting four-game sequence with the Milwaukee Brewers.
San Diego’s Jackson Merrill (proper) claps after scoring on a single by Austin Hays during the seventh inning of the Dodgers’ loss to the Padres. AP Photo/Mark J. Terrill
And still, no consequence felt more foreboding than this one.
After a four-run rally in the backside of the second on Tuesday, the Dodgers’ once-resurgent lineup scored just six more occasions over its next 25 innings –– even with Shohei Ohtani coming back from the injured checklist on Wednesday, and recording a multi-hit effort Thursday that included a comfort RBI double in the ninth.
Though they manufactured loads of visitors and prevented each of San Diego’s starters from finishing even 5 innings, they wasted numerous alternatives by going 4-for-25 with runners in scoring place.
It didn’t matter that the team received a pair of high quality, though hardly dominant, begins out of Yoshinobu Yamamoto on Wednesday (six innings, two earned runs –– albeit with two more unearned) and Tyler Glasnow on Thursday (6.1 innings, three earned runs –– the last of which scored after he left the game).
Tyler Glasnow adjusts his cap after ending the fifth inning of the Dodgers’ loss to the Padres. AP Photo/Mark J. Terrill
Or that their very own bullpen was, by and large, glorious; only carried out in during a three-run seventh-inning rally from the Padres on Thursday that was aided by some shoddy Dodgers protection (another space the place the team out of the blue regressed against the next level of opponent).
Instead, their red-hot offense reverted again to its mediocre mid-summer type.
And now, after a number of weeks of more and more auspicious type, the Dodgers have renewed inquiries to reply about their incapacity to beat other playoff-bound groups.
If it doesn’t change soon, it might portend an unexpectedly quick October.
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