The San Diego Padres kept the good times rolling, winning their fourth straight and besting their rivals in a true pitcher’s duel.
Michael King and Yoshinobu Yamamoto both dealt, each pitching seven brilliant innings. But King won out, shutting out the Los Angeles Dodgers’ lineup while Yamamoto made only one mistake that ended up being the difference maker. He threw a splitter that didn’t quite split and Miguel Andujar launched it into left-center field.
That was the only run the Friars would need,
with the bullpen working around some tough jams. They’ll need to hope for a little more offense if they want to take the series tonight.
Taking the mound
Emmet Sheehan (LAD) v. Griffin Canning (SD)
Sheehan had a breakthrough season in 2025 with the Dodgers. In 12 starts he pitched to a career-best 2.82 ERA while limiting opponents to a .185 batting average.
He’s come back down a bit this season, owning a 4.54 ERA in a back-end role with L.A. His last two starts were solid, surrendering only three runs between his outings versus the Atlanta Braves and the San Francisco Giants. The Dodgers will hope he can do the same against the Friars’ offense tonight.
Similarly, Canning had a breakout season with the New York Mets before falling to injury midway through the season. He looked fantastic in his return from injury, but has since struggled immensely. Across his last two starts Canning’s surrendered 12 runs.
The first six of those were mostly bad luck, with the St. Louis Cardinals scoring four on a costly error by Fernando Tatis Jr. But, since then, it’s been Canning’s inability to miss bats that has been the source of struggle. He’ll either need to rediscover that ability or get some help from the offense if San Diego is to win.
Batter up!
The Dodgers actually outhit the Padres, 5-4, in yesterday’s contest. But the only hit that mattered was Andujar’s homer in the first inning.
The Friars have been using Tatis at second base a ton lately. That’s been in order to give Miguel Andujar Nick Castellanos more regular time in the starting lineup. It worked out well this weekend in Seattle but didn’t as much last night. They’ll likely do the same tonight in hopes of slugging against Sheehan.
- Fernando Tatis Jr., 2B
- Miguel Andujar, DH
- Gavin Sheets, 1B
- Manny Machado, 3B
- Xander Bogaerts, SS
- Jackson Merrill, CF
- Ramón Laureano, LF
- Nick Castellanos, RF
- Freddy Fermin, C
The lineup doesn’t have much history against Sheehan, so they’ll have to learn on the fly a bit. Sheets has swung a hot bat lately but didn’t reach base in last night’s game. He’ll hope to return to the overpowering slugger that just won him National League Player of the Week.
Relief corps
With King pitching the masterpiece that was his seven innings against L.A., the Friars only needed to use two of their relievers to get the job done. They made it scarier than it should have been.
Jason Adam worked around a two-out jam. He gave up a walk to Hyeseong Kim to flip the order over to Shohei Ohtani who promptly singled to put runners on the corners. Thankfully, Mookie Betts grounded into a harmless force out to end the trouble.
Mason Miller closed out the ninth for his MLB-leading 15th save. He worked around even more tense conditions, issuing back-to-back walks. With runners on first and second and no outs, Miller had thrown 10 pitches, only one of which was a strike. He threw a pitch that barely caught plate and would have been a ball had it not been challenged and overturned for strike one. After that, he was back to himself.
He got ahead, 1-2, on Will Smith before getting the backstop to fly out harmlessly. Miller then struck out Max Muncy on three pitches for the second out before grounding out Andy Pages to end any worries of a Los Angeles comeback.
That leaves plenty of relievers available for what may be a San Diego bullpen game, if Canning can’t deliver. Jeremiah Estrada, Ron Marinaccio, Yuki Matsui, Adrian Morejon, Wandy Peralta and Bradgley Rodriguez are all readily available, though Matsui and Rodriguez combined for four innings on Sunday so the others will likely be leaned on first.
