This is the part that should bother San Diego fans more than the final score: it was a game the Padres could have used to punch a playoff ticket, and they didn't manage a single run to show for it.
Instead, the Dodgers put up seven, spread across nine hits and four walks, while going just 2-for-4 with runners in scoring position. That's the scary part if you're San Diego. The Dodgers weren't even squeezing every drop out of their chances, and it still turned into a laugher.
Josue De Paula was the best player on the field, full stop. Going 2-for-3 with a triple and a walk isn't a line you shrug off, and it fits a season where he's been getting on base at an absurd rate. Will Smith and Tommy Edman both hit solo home runs. Edman's came right after San Diego turned to Wandy Peralta in the fifth, and that's when the game went from competitive to over. Before that, Mookie Betts and Freddie Freeman had already teamed up for a two-out rally in the fourth that pushed the lead to five.
The final score matters less than the timing. This wasn't a random Tuesday in June. San Diego came into the series with a chance to clinch a postseason spot outright, and instead of grabbing it, the lineup got shut out by a Dodgers pitching staff that used eight different arms to do it. Call that bullpen game a coincidence if you want. I don't buy it. It read like a deliberate callback to how the Dodgers dismantled the Padres in the 2024 NLDS, and if you're San Diego, you don't want that memory surfacing in the same ballpark in the same week you're trying to close out your season.
None of this means the Padres are cooked. One shutout in the last week of the year doesn't erase what they did to get back into position for October. But it's a bad time for the lineup to go quiet, and a worse time to hand the Dodgers a highlight reel that looks like a preview of a series San Diego already lost once. If I'm the Padres, I'm less worried about the standings this morning and more worried about whether my hitters just watched a blueprint for how the Dodgers plan to attack them again in a month.
The schedule doesn't offer much comfort either. San Diego turns around and sees Yoshinobu Yamamoto on the mound next, which is not the get-well game a shut-out offense wants.
