Dodgers do just enough to snap Padres’ winning streak

LOS ANGELES — The last time the Padres ventured into Dodger Stadium, the two teams combined for seven batters hit by pitches. The benches emptied after Fernando Tatis Jr. was hit in the finale. Shohei Ohtani waving his team back to the dugout after a seemingly retaliatory pitch from Robert Suarez likely staved off another brouhaha. Both managers wound up serving one-game suspensions and Suarez got two games in the aftermath of what’s grown into baseball’s most heated rivalry.

But that was then.

“I’m not a grudge guy,” said Padres manager Mike Shildt, who was shoved a bit by Dodgers manager Dave Roberts here in June. “ … I’m more of a day-to-day guy.”

There figure to be better days ahead, too.

Ramón Laureano stayed hot with another home run, but the Padres managed just four hits and the Dodgers did just enough to upend a bullpen game started by Wandy Peralta in a 3-2 win that moved the two teams back into a tie atop the NL West. Teoscar Hernandez’s home run off Jeremiah Estrada in the seventh inning after solid bulk work from Randy Vásquez proved to be the difference in front of a sellout crowd of 53,119 at Dodger Stadium.

“Really clean game,” Shildt said. “Wandy was fantastic. He did exactly what we were looking for. Grabbed the top of the order. Went and got (Freddie) Freeman. You know, Randy, two runs got him a little bit, but he was able to get us into the sixth. And, you know, aside from the homer from Teoscar on Estrada, the bullpen was good and able to keep it right there.

“We just weren’t able to get on top.”

They did have one last gasp.

Luis Arraez’s eighth-inning sacrifice fly with the bases loaded brought the Padres to within a run, but Manny Machado popped out on the first pitch by Blake Treinen to end that inning and Ryan O’Hearn flied out to end the game with the tying run on first base to snap the Padres’ five-game winning streak and the Dodgers’ four-game skid.

Three of the five pitchers thrown at a Dodgers team that lost Max Muncy (oblique) to the injured list before the game did not give up a run while combining on a four-hitter.

Vásquez allowed two runs in the third inning, Estrada served up a home run in the seventh inning and veteran left-hander Clayton Kershaw stifled the Padres over six strong innings.

Kershaw struck out just three batters, but he allowed just two hits and retired 10 in a row after allowing walking designated hitter Jose Iglesias after Laureano’s third homer since the trade deadline.

“A ton of respect for future Hall of Famer Clayton Kershaw,” Shildt said. “The fact that he’s gone through what he’s gone through and still has a desire and passion to compete in his 18th season is, quite frankly, admirable. But we were in a competition. He competed very well. He added and subtracted and we had a couple swings on. Laureano, good swing. But he did his part for sure.”

Vásquez struck out two to finish the second inning after a perfect 1⅓ innings from Peralta to open the game.

But Michael Conforto and Alex Freeland both singled to start the third and the Dodgers loaded the bases for Ohtani when a bunted ball from Miguel Rojas glanced off the heel of a diving Machado and kicked into foul ground.

“Great effort,” Shildt said. “I mean, just right off the end of his glove. I mean, yeah, that’s an out, and they’re still at first and second instead of the bases loaded. It’s different. But, you know, talk about effort, that was a great effort. And our guys gave it tonight.”

The two runs that the Dodgers wound up scoring were pretty much a moral victory, even if they put the Padres in a hole.

After all, Ohtani, the NL home run leader with 43, merely bounced into a run-scoring fielder’s choice and Mookie Betts lifted a go-ahead sacrifice fly to center.

A double-play ball helped Vásquez out of the fourth inning and he turned in a scoreless fifth before the bullpen door opened for Estrada to start the sixth.

After giving up the home run in the seventh to Hernandez, Estrada issued a one-out walk to Andy Pages before giving way to Yuki Matsui, who escaped the inning without further damage.

Mason Miller struck out two in a scoreless eighth.

Recalled from Triple-A El Paso replace the injured King, Vásquez struck out four and allowed two runs on three hits and a walk in 3⅔ innings.

The Padres walked into Dodger Stadium with a one-game lead in the NL West. The last time they held a lead in the division this late in the season was 2010.

The Dodgers — who bounced the Padres in five games in last year’s NLDS — had still won five of seven meetings this year.

But the nine-game lead they held on July 3 had evaporated as the Padres, boosted by a far more active trade deadline than the Dodgers, surged ahead of scuffling Los Angeles.

After this weekend, the Padres will host the Dodgers next weekend at Petco Park, the last time these two teams will meet in the regular season.

None of that changes the day-to-day for the Padres.

“Because it’s head-to-head, it’s got more significance,” Shildt said. “The reality is we got here by putting emphasis on every day being the most important day of that of the season, and that’s not going to change from my seat.”

Added Tatis: “We have the same goal, just winning a baseball game. We have to find a way to do that.”