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Jurickson Profar has highly relevant hit as Padres win series at Dodger Stadium

Kevin Acee, The San Diego Union-Tribune on

Published in Baseball

LOS ANGELES — The Padres began their weekend here with an exhilarating comeback and then stayed through a unique couple days, biding their time and squandering opportunities before coming away with something rare.

With a 6-3 victory over the Dodgers on Sunday, they won a second consecutive series at Dodger Stadium for the first time in 11 years.

It seemed relevant that it was Jurickson Profar’s bases-loaded double in the seventh inning that was the decisive blow, breaking a 3-3 tie.

The night before, following a Dodgers victory that saw both teams’ benches clear in the fifth inning after Profar took exception at an inside pitch, Dodgers catcher Will Smith said, “I don’t know why we would have thrown at him. He’s kind of irrelevant.”

His ability to finally make a Dodgers pitcher pay for all they were giving away was the reason the Padres won for the second time in three days and are back at .500 (9-9).

For the first time in 36 years, there was a rain delay on successive days at Dodger Stadium.

Sunday’s 36-minute wait for the weather to clear followed a delay of two hours, 15 minutes on Saturday.

There is little more excruciating in the middle of a long baseball season than waiting around to play baseball during a rain delay.

But the Padres were able to find something more.

They grounded into three double plays, two of them with the bases loaded, as they wasted the first six of James Paxton’s eight walks.

They did finally turn his lack of command into a couple runs to tie the game 3-3 in the sixth inning.

 

Paxton, who walked at least one batter in every inning he pitched, began the sixth by walking Manny Machado and Profar.

Ryan Brasier replaced him and promptly walked Ha-Seong Kim to load the bases before getting Luis Campusano on a double play grounder, similar to how Paxton escaped trouble when Jake Cronenworth grounded into a double play with the bases loaded in the third inning and with a runner on first in the fifth inning.

Those double plays ended innings. Campusano’s came with no outs, meaning Machado scored and Jackson Merrill got the chance to contribute more heroics.

Merrill hit a hard grounder up the middle that Dodgers shortstop Mookie Betts dove to spear on the grass in shallow right-center field but then threw on a bounce and wide of first base, giving Merrill a game-tying RBI game-tying single two nights after his RBI game-winning single in the 11th inning.

The Dodgers’ trek to their most walks issued in more than 20 years continued with J.P. Feyereisen replacing Brasier to start the seventh and walking Xander Bogaerts and Cronenworth around a single by Fernando Tatis Jr. to load the bases. Machado, whose homer leading off the fourth inning put the Padres up 1-0, popped out before Profar drove a fastball just below shoulder level off the wall in center field.

The Dodgers would intentionally walk Ha-Seong Kim before Alex Vesia got out of the inning. A walk by Jose Azocar in the ninth inning, the Padres’ 14th, set a Padres record for a nine-inning game. It was most walks issued by Dodgers pitchers in a game since 1951, when the team played its home games in Brooklyn.

The Dodgers scored all their runs in the fourth inning, answering Machado’s home run with a double by Freddie Freeman, RBI single by Will Smith and a two-run homer by Max Muncy.

Darvish got out of the fourth and was perfect in the gift before giving way to Enyel De Los Santos to start the sixth. Yuki Matsui replaced De Los Santos with two outs and a runner on first and worked through the seventh. Wandy Peralta got through a scoreless eighth to set up Robert Suarez, who earned his fifth save.

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©2024 The San Diego Union-Tribune. Visit sandiegouniontribune.com. Distributed by Tribune Content Agency, LLC.

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