Padres Fade Continues As Dodgers, Yamamoto Post 3-0 Shutout

The San Diego Padres late June swoon continued well into July as the Padres lost their eighth straight game, this one a tidy 3-0 shutout authored by Yoshinobu Yamamoto and three Los Angeles Dodgers relievers.  

Yamamoto dominated the Padres lineup with seven scoreless innings in which he gave up just three harmless singles. The Padres opened with Wandy Peralta in front of Griffin Canning, and Peralta did his job with a shaky but scoreless first inning. 

The Dodgers got all the offense they would need in the third inning, though, as Dalton Rushing walked, Alex Freeland singled and Andy Pages drove home what would prove to be the winning run with another single. 

After that Freddy Freeman took center stage. He homered to right center off reliever Kyle Hart in the sixth to double LA’s lead to 2-0, then drove home an insurance run off none other than Mason Miller to up the count to 3-0. To add insult to injury, Miller’s ERA finally rose over one, as he ended the evening at 1.01. 

The Padres lineup did virtually nothing, with Fernando Tatis being the lone bright spot with a pair of hits. Xander Bogaerts and Gavin Sheets also got singles, although the Padres did get Luis Campusano back in the lineup as he returned from the IL. 

The loss dropped the Padres to two games under .500 at 43-45, and they also dropped a slot in the standings of the NL West as the Arizona Diamondbacks tool over sole possession of second place with their 4-3 win over the Milwaukee Brewers. 

The Padres are now a game behind Arizona and 15 behind the Dodgers. They also dropped to five games out in the wild card standings with four teams in front of them, so it’s getting late early in San Diego. 

At this point it’s hard to tell where and when this swan dive in the standings ends. The Padres will send JP Sears to the mound tonight against Emmet Sheehan, and given Sears’ last outing against the Chicago Cubs at Wrigley it seems all too likely that the current losing streak could continue to grow. 

The Padres return home tomorrow to start a four-game series against Arizona, which would allow them to potentially restore order in the standings, but given the state of their rotation and the lack of production from their lineup it's hard to expect much with the All-Star game approaching.