LOS ANGELES — Yoshinobu Yamamoto delivers during his seven-inning, 10-strikeout shutout performance against the Padres. Credit: @Dodgers
LOS ANGELES — A night after needing a ninth-inning miracle and a grand slam to survive the Padres, the Dodgers didn’t need any late-inning theatrics on Saturday. Yoshinobu Yamamoto made sure of that, carving up San Diego’s lineup for seven shutout innings, and Freddie Freeman did the rest, driving in every run the Dodgers would need in a 3-0 win at Dodger Stadium. Los Angeles now leads this series 3-0, with a chance to complete the sweep on Sunday.
Yamamoto Was Nearly Untouchable
Yamamoto worked around Fernando Tatis Jr. all night and mostly got the better of him, allowing just three hits and two walks across seven innings while striking out ten. He needed a handful of tense moments to get there. Tatis Jr. singled to open the game and stood on third with two outs before Ty France struck out swinging to end the threat. Gavin Sheets reached in that same first inning, and Xander Bogaerts drew a walk in the seventh, but San Diego never found a way to push a run across against him. Ten punchouts in seven innings pushed Yamamoto to 9-5 on the season and dropped his ERA to 2.49, and it’s the kind of line that ends a series before it really gets started. The Padres had life late in games against this Dodgers pitching staff earlier in the series. Saturday, Yamamoto made sure that never happened.
Freeman Provides the Only Offense They’d Need
San Diego starter Griffin Canning had already been fighting his command all season, carrying a 1-6 record and a 6.71 ERA into the night, and Saturday didn’t change the trend. The Dodgers scratched across a run in the third when Dalton Rushing walked, Alex Freeland singled, a wild pitch moved both runners up, and Andy Pages lined a two-out single to left to make it 1-0.
Canning made it through five before Kyle Hart took over to start the sixth, and Freeman turned Hart’s first pitch of the night into a solo homer to center, stretching the lead to 2-0. It was Freeman’s 15th of the season, and the kind of swing that’s become a habit against this Padres pitching staff all series.
Freeman wasn’t finished. In the eighth, Tommy Edman was hit by a pitch by Mason Miller, moved to second on a Pages groundout, and Freeman lined a single to center to bring him home, making it 3-0. Two hits, two RBIs, and every single run the Dodgers scored on the night came off Freeman’s bat.
Mookie Betts followed with a ground ball that turned into an inning-ending double play, but by then the damage was already plenty.
The Bullpen Locked the Door
Once Yamamoto handed it off, the bullpen didn’t blink. Brock Stewart gave up Tatis Jr.’s double in the eighth but stranded him after a pitching change brought in Alex Vesia, who got the final out of the inning on a foul-tip strikeout from Jake Cronenworth. Will Klein took over in the ninth and needed just three batters to close it out, striking out Manny Machado and Gavin Sheets around a Ty France groundout to seal his second save of the season.
Combined, the trio of Stewart, Vesia, and Klein faced seven batters after Yamamoto exited and allowed just the one hit, no walks, and no runs. San Diego finished the night with four hits and nothing to show for any of them, its lineup shut out completely for the first time all series after averaging better than five runs a game through the first three.
Three Games Down, One to Go
This series has swung wildly from one extreme to the next. Thursday’s opener was a 12-7 slugfest that saw the Dodgers erase a 6-0 deficit for their biggest comeback in four years. Friday brought Teoscar Hernandez’s go-ahead grand slam in a tense 4-3 finish. Saturday was a completely different animal, a clean, controlled, dominant pitching performance that never let the Padres feel like they belonged in the game. Three games, three different ways to win, and the Dodgers have taken all of them. San Diego will now try to find a way to salvage anything from this series or head home having been swept at Dodger Stadium. The Dodgers will look to run their neighbors from down south out of the building before they welcome the Diamondbacks into town.
Up Next
The Dodgers will go for the sweep on Sunday with Emmet Sheehan taking the mound against JP Sears. First pitch is scheduled for 4:20 p.m. PT on NBC/Peacock, with Los Angeles looking to send the Padres out of Chavez Ravine having dropped all four games of the series.
