San Diego Keeps Sinking As Dodgers Pound Out 12-7 Win With Vasquez Ending Up In ER

The San Diego Padres are fading fast, and the Los Angeles Dodgers continued to help with a 12-7 pounding of starter Randy Vasquez, who failed to hold a 6-0 lead. 

It was just the latest failure for Vasquez, who had a rough night on the health front as well. The Padres gave their starter plenty of runs to work with for a change, but in the end it didn’t matter, and he left the game in the fourth after being hit in the right ankle by a Mookie Betts line drive in the first inning. Vasquez wound up passing out as he was being sent out for an X-ray, and his health situation remains uncertain pending an update today.

The Padres did show some power in this one as they homered three times in the first two innings. The home runs came from Manny Machado, Jackson Merrill and Jake Cronenworth, with Machado’s homer being a two-run shot while Cronenworth added a three-run bomb. 

In the end, though, it didn’t matter much. The Dodgers only got one home run from Dalton Rushing, but they pounded out 17 hits off Vasquez and three relievers, and by the end of the sixth inning the Padres were down 11-6. Both teams added a token run in the late innings to produce the ugly final score, and Wandy Peralta, Yuki Matsui and German Marquez also got bombed in a game where the bullpen failed to hold the line. 

The Dodgers relievers were much stronger, with Will Klein getting the win after picking up starter Roki Sasaki, who left after three with an unseemly line of his own that featured six earned runs. 

The loss dropped the Padres to .500, and they’re now 43-43. They’re also three games out in the race for a wild-card spot, and those plans for holding the fort until the trade deadline hits and reinforcements supposedly arrive are starting to look a little unrealistic.  

“It’s a collective group effort,” said second baseman Jake Cronenworth in a report from AJ Cassavell of MLB.com as he returned to the lineup after a long stint on the IL. “That’s what it’s going to take. I think we’re .500 now. We’re not in the position we want to be in. We’ve got to do something about it. There’s got to be a sense of urgency.”

That urgency needs to start this weekend, as the Padres have now lost six straight. Falling below .500 wasn’t part of the plan going into this season, and they need to stop tbe bleeding now.