Padres Daily: Penned in; going after Ohtani; intentional thinking

Good morning from Los Angeles,

What happened last night was about how it probably had to go for the Dodgers to beat the Padres.

The Dodgers do not have good starting pitching. They have an excellent bullpen and an even better offense.

Their starting pitcher got drilled. Their bullpen did not allow a run. Their offense scored a lot. That was the game.

We will get to some of the decisions made in the Padres’ 7-5 loss in Game 1 of the National League Division Series, because this is the time of year where every move can at least be questioned.

But this was not on manager Mike Shildt.

It was kind of on Dylan Cease, who got just 10 outs and allowed eight baserunners. Well, seven baserunners plus Shohei Ohtani jogging around the bases without stopping after hitting a 97 mph fastball that was not quite high enough to prevent him from hitting a three-run homer.

It was also kind of on the offense that did nothing for most of (and scored nothing for all of) the final six innings.

The Padres have scored one run in 18⅔  innings against relief pitchers this postseason.

“You get into playoff games, you have good bullpens you’re facing,” Shildt said. “That’s part of it. Clearly, we’re capable against any reliever. I thought we had some good at-bats, had some traffic out there. Had the go-ahead run at the plate late in the last inning. And our offense has been good all year. … We got (Yoshinobu) Yamamoto out of there early. Their bullpen came in, did the job. And we just weren’t able to get the big blow.”

Yes, the Braves and Dodgers have some excellent high-leverage relievers. But dating back to the final three weeks of the season, the Padres have endured a number of scoring droughts.

They have gone at least five innings without a run 11 times in their past 19 games. They didn’t score in the final six innings last night and went 11 batters without reaching base between Kyle Higashioka’s one-out double in the fourth and Jurickson Profar’s lead-off walk in the eighth. They were 2-for-11 with runners in scoring position.

That all added up to a wasted opportunity when they had leads of 3-0 and 5-3 against Yamamoto, who was pulled after three innings.

It’s difficult to pin a loss on an offense that scored five runs. Up until last night, the Padres were 67-8 when scoring at least five runs.

The problem is, you have to do what the game demands. And the Padres are facing a team that can hit against pretty much any pitcher. So last night’s game demanded the Padres score more.

“We know they are going to come back and they’re going to score runs,” Manny Machado said.

It was Machado who put the Padres up 3-0 with a two-run homer in the first inning that made 53,028 people about as quiet as such a gathering could be.

But the Padres were going against the Dodgers, who have the best player on earth playing his best and two former MVPs hitting directly behind him and then All-Stars hitting in two of the three spots after that.

“We knew it wasn’t going to be enough,” said Machado, who struck out in the eighth and ninth innings. “We have to continue stringing up good at-bats as a team and keep competing. … We did. We didn’t execute. We didn’t get so many hits off the bullpen. They came in and made their pitches. I think we had some good at-bats, and we just couldn’t get anything rolling until the last two innings.”

What they got going in the eighth inning was the lead-off walk by Profar, a one-out walk by Jackson Merrill and a two-out walk by Jake Cronenworth before Donovan Solano struck out.

What they got going in the ninth was a two-out single by Fernando Tatis Jr. and a walk by Profar before Machado struck out.

“After Yamamoto went out, I feel like they brought guys that just executed pitches,” Tatis said. “They were not afraid of attacking. And yeah, they silenced our bats for most of the game.”

You can read my game story (here) for the breakdown of events, as the Dodgers accomplished their mission of “fighting” in Game 1 plus more quotes from Tatis and Machado and some from Cease.

Going after him

Sure, this is what can happen when you pitch to Ohtani:

There is a school of thought that says that at this point you pitch around him in pretty much every crucial situation.

That is not the school in which Shildt is enrolled.

And there was evidence last night to support the Padres manager’s thinking, even if the lasting image is the home Cease allowed when there was a base open.

Ohtani singled against left-hander Adrián Morejón in the fourth inning on a 98 mph fastball that shattered his bat as the ball floated into center field at 67.8 mph.

Cease got Ohtani on a fly ball to start the bottom of the first. Jason Adam struck him out on three pitches to start the sixth. And Scott finished a strikeout of Ohtani on a 97 mph fastball above the zone with a runner on second and one down in the eighth.

“He’s a good player,” Shildt said. “Clearly, he’s done some pretty special things this year. I feel good about — it’s just about execution. You’ve got to be even finer against really good players. But we have really good players, too. It’s just about the execution. … Morejón absolutely made a beautiful pitch and blew him up. And he got one into center field. I like Scott’s pitches against him, like Adam’s pitches against him. We executed. We were able to get him out. We just got something that was out over (from Cease) that he was able to get the meat of the bat on.”

All that said, Ohtani is 8-for-16 in his past four games against the Padres (over the past 12 days) and is batting .461 with a 1.439 OPS in 85 plate appearances since Sept. 11. In that span, he is batting .630 with a 2.100 OPS in 29 plate appearances with runners in scoring position.

Intentional reasoning

The player Shildt did notably avoid once was Mookie Betts, eschewing a 2-2 count and issuing an intentional walk to the Dodgers’ No.2 batter in the fourth inning.

The decision came after Morejón, who had entered the game to face Ohtani, yielded the broken-bat single to load the bases and then had a splitter get past Higashioka for a wild pitch that scored the lead runner and moved the other two runners up a base.

So with first base open, Shildt gave the free pass to the right-handed-hitting Betts to load the bases and bring up left-handed-hitting Freddie Freeman.

“I was surprised,” Dodgers manager Dave Roberts said. “I think Mookie was, too. Morejón just threw a ball in the dirt to give up a run. I don’t know if Mike was kind of leery of another wild pitch. Obviously, with two strikes, it typically doesn’t happen, and they wanted to take their chance with Freddie, which is one of those things, when you have good players, I think we’re in a good spot if it’s Mookie or Freddie. But I guess they just wanted that left-handed match-up.”

Yes. And there was more.

Shildt considered that Betts put the ball on the ground just 23.5% of the time against lefties this season and struck out just 8% of the time against lefties and walked 14% of the time he reached a 2-2 count against lefties.

“So now you can sit there and say, let’s tap dance around him,” Shildt said of his options. “No, let’s go to Freddie with Morejon, who throws 50 percent ground-ball rating against lefties. … So we go to Freddie to get the (grounder). And we got it.”

Freeman hit the first pitch he saw to the right side. Solano, playing first base, had to run to his right to field it and make a throw across his body to force out the runner at home for the second out.

With that, Shildt went to right-hander Jeremiah Estrada to face right-handed hitting Teoscar Hernández.

That did not go as planned, which does on its own did not make Shildt’s strategy wrong. Estrada simply threw a 98 mph fastball to the heart of the zone that Hernández lined to right-center field to drive in two runs and give the Dodgers their first lead of the night, at 6-5.

“We’ve got Estrada, who we like a lot,” Shildt said. “And we like a righty on Hernandez. And to his credit, put a swing and brought in two runs.”

One way or another

The throw Solano made after fielding Freeman’s soft grounder to get the out at home in the fourth inning was excellent.

The decision was at least debatable, in that it appeared he might have been able to get an inning-ending double play.

Shildt believed the right play was to take out the run.

“I think when in doubt he made the right play,” Shildt said. “It was a tough play. But I don’t know (that) it’s an easy double play ball. It’s not hit hard. It’s going away. We’ve got a pitcher who has got to come over. I thought he made a good play. He’s making a baseball play to try to cut a run down, which he did. He’s smart. He knows we’ve got a guy coming in for the next guy. Made a good baseball play to keep it right there.”

Bounceback opportunity

The Padres have the experience of having won the 2022 NLDS in four games after dropping Game 1 to the Dodgers.

“It’s a different year,” Machado said.

Just three pitchers and three position players on the Padres’ roster for this series were on the ’22 Division Series roster.

So, the Padres chose to draw, instead, on what they have done this season.

Among their more resilient traits was that they lost consecutive games just four times in their final 65 games. (One of those times was last week against the Dodgers.)

Said Jake Cronenworth: “This team has done it all year — the ability to bounce back the next day after a tough loss and forget about what happened the day before.”

Xander Bogaerts, who has two World Series rings and last night played in his 48th postseason game, most on the Padres, talked about this last week.

“I feel like the bounce back ability is the best thing we might have,” he said. “You have some tough losses, it’s easy to come in the next day and be like, ‘(Expletive). I still remember that. That sucked.’ But the ability we have to turn the page real quick and come in the next day knowing we gotta go at it again and go about it the right way … you gotta have that, because when it comes to the playoffs, you’re not going to win every game.”

The Padres face Jack Flaherty tonight.

The Dodgers moved Flaherty back a day, in part to facilitate his work cleaning up some mechanical issues in the bullpen.

Flaherty allowed the Padres three runs in five innings on Sept. 25 and has allowed at least three runs in three straight starts.

Yu Darvish, who has a 3.55 ERA in five starts (25⅓ innings) since returning from an absence of more than three months while dealing with elbow soreness and a personal matter, starts for the Padres. (He was the winner in Game 2 two years ago, allowing three runs in five innings in the 5-3 victory.)

With an off day tomorrow, it would seem every reliever on both teams will be available today except perhaps Blake Treinen. He threw 39 pitches in 1⅔ innings to close out last night’s game. It was the most outs Treinen recorded in a game since 2021 and tied for his most pitches in a game since 2019.

You can read in Jeff Sanders’ notebook from yesterday (here) about Darvish’s relationship with Ohtani and the Padres’ pitching plans for later in the series. (Also — and I don’t know where he gets off — but Sanders had a couple tidbits in that notebook about Machado’s standing on the franchise’s all-time postseason list and a hard hit by Tatis.)

Kim changes rep

Even facing surgery to repair a tear in the labrum of his right shoulder and after a down offensive season, Ha-Seong Kim figures to be coveted for his defense in the middle of the infield and is expected to command more than the $8 million he would be due if he stayed with the Padres.

So there was not much question as to whether Kim would decline the option on his contract after this season.

And he sent a clear signal as to what direction he will choose by recently hiring the Boras Corporation to represent him. One does not hire Scott Boras at a time like this with the intention of remaining in an existing contract.

The 28-year-old Kim, who hit .233/.330/.370 in 120 games this season, has made $28 million in his four seasons since joining the Padres. The mutual option on his contract would pay him $8 million next season if both sides decided to exercise their option. The Padres will owe Kim $2 million if he opts out.

Tidbits

• Tatis was 2-for-4 with a walk last night and is 6-for-10 with three walks in three postseason games. One thing almost always coincides with Tatis going on a tear offensively: excellent plate discipline. Tatis has chased just four of the 29 pitches (13.7%) he has seen outside the strike zone the past three games. That is less than half his chase rate in the regular season.
• After going 0-for-7 in the wild-card series, Bogaerts was 2-for-4 with a two-run double last night.
• Higashioka caught Dylan Cease last night for the first time since July 2. While the Padres have pretty strictly matched up their pitchers with the same catchers, the fact Higashioka entered yesterday having homered in three of his previous six at-bats won out. Said Shildt:  “I’m no genius, but we’ll stick with that guy.” Higashioka was 1-for-2 with a double last night.
• Profar walked twice last night, drove in a run with a groundout and finished 0-for-3. He is 1-for-10 this postseason.
• The Padres’ 6 through 9 batters are 6-for-38 (.158) in the postseason. Three of the hits are by Higashioka and two are by Bogaerts. Donovan Solano, who has started all three games, including the two against right-handers, is 1-for-11. Jake Cronenworth is 0-for-9 with a walk, and he has been hit by a pitch.
• Jackson Merrill worked a seven-pitch walk and a 10-pitch walk last night. He was 0-for-2 and scored a run and is 3-for-9 in the three postseason games.
• If you missed the coverage from Friday, I wrote Friday (here) about Joe Musgrove needing Tommy John surgery. And Bryce Miller wrote a column (here) after talking with Sheel Seidler.

All right, that’s it for me.

Talk to you tomorrow.