Sunday, June 28, 2026

Copyrighted by Sarah Morris, 2026

The Dodgers’ three-run fifth inning propelled them to take the series against the Padres.

On a bright sunny Sunday afternoon at Petco Park, a 4–2 victory over the San Diego Padres enabled the Los Angeles Dodgers to increase their lead in the National League West to ten games.

In June, Emmet Sheehan had struggled with his command, but on Sunday, he rediscovered his fastball command. His changeup was darting all over the place, and the Padres couldn’t stop chasing it even though the pitch was rarely in the strike zone. Sheehan allowed a solo home run to Manny Machado in the fourth inning. He struck out five while walking two in five innings. He will look to build on this in his next start.

In the third inning, Alex Freeland singled, moved to second on a sacrifice by Chuckie Robinson, and scored on Shohei Ohtani’s single.

Michael King had difficulty locating his pitches in the strike zone in the fifth inning, and the Dodgers took advantage with Mookie Betts’ RBI single, highlighting the inning.

The usually reliable Alex Vesia didn’t have it, though he retired two batters. Will Klein allowed a run-scoring single, but he pitched 1.1 innings. Tanner Scott was sharp in his 1.1 innings. Eduardo Henriquez recorded his first save of the season.

On Monday, the Dodgers start a three-game series against the Athletics in Sacramento. Eric Lauer will try to build on his superb outing against the Minnesota Twins.