The Padres couldn’t find the cure for what ails them in Los Angeles Friday as they fell to the Dodgers 4-2.
The team, which has dropped five of its last seven games and fell a game under .500 with the loss, erased a 2-0 deficit in the seventh inning on a Ha-Seong Kim two-run double, only to have the Dodgers score two more in the bottom of the frame.
The prime culprit, Freddie Freeman, gave the Dodgers the initial lead with his own two-run double in the third. He added a solo home run in the seventh, the second of a back-to-back pair of homers – his followed a Mookie Betts shot.
Starter Blake Snell went six innings and gave up four hits and two runs. He left trailing, but the Padres got him off the hook in the seventh by tying it up. Tim Hill, though, only went a third of an inning in the seventh and came away with the loss.
The beginning to the L.A. series came a day after a frustrated Bob Melvin called out his team, following a loss in Minnesota, saying “we gotta perform better.” He added that the Padres “put way too much pressure on our pitching late in the game.”
Of Friday’s loss, a more subdued Melvin said, “I thought we stayed with it well … we just came up a little bit short tonight.”
The three-game set continues with Joe Musgrove getting the start Saturday against Julio UrÃas, while Ryan Weathers takes the mound against Tony Gonsolin Sunday.