Alex Call slid home with the go-ahead run on Andy Pages’ sacrifice fly off Mason Miller in the ninth inning as the Los Angeles Dodgers held on for a 5-4 win over the San Diego Padres on Tuesday night, News.Az reports, citing ESPN.

Freddie Freeman powered the Dodgers with two home runs before Los Angeles capitalized on an unearned run against Miller (1-1), the Padres’ highly regarded closer who had not allowed a run in 20 of his first 21 appearances this season.

Max Muncy sparked the decisive rally by successfully challenging a called third strike and earning a walk with one out in the ninth inning.

Miller then attempted to catch pinch-runner Alex Call stealing second, but his pickoff throw sailed past first baseman Ty France, allowing Call to advance to third base.

Pages battled through the at-bat by fouling off four two-strike pitches before sending a fly ball to right field. Fernando Tatis Jr. made the catch and Sung-mun Song delivered the relay throw home, but Call narrowly slid in safely ahead of the tag.

Manny Machado and Miguel Andujar both launched early two-run homers for San Diego, whose four-game winning streak came to an end one day after a 1-0 victory in the opening game of the Southern California rivals’ first series of the season.

Tanner Scott (1-1) recorded four outs in relief for Los Angeles, while Will Klein worked a perfect ninth inning to earn the first save of his major league career.

Freeman snapped out of a 4-for-29 slump by recording his first multi-homer game of the season. The Dodgers, winners of six of their last seven games, also received encouraging signs from the 36-year-old first baseman after manager Dave Roberts said before the game that Freeman had been recovering from feeling under the weather in recent days.

Padres starter Griffin Canning threw five innings of four-hit baseball in his fourth start for San Diego. He struck out five batters and exited the game with the lead.

Dodgers starter Emmet Sheehan lasted four innings, allowing four runs on five hits.

Shohei Ohtani opened the game with a double and scored two batters later on Freeman’s first homer of the night.

Teoscar Hernández doubled and later scored on Ohtani’s groundout in the fifth inning, while Freeman tied the game in the sixth with a solo homer off Jeremiah Estrada.

The game was attended by new Padres owners José E. Feliciano and Kwanza Jones.

In Wednesday’s series finale, Ohtani (3-2, 0.82 ERA) is scheduled to make his eighth start of the season for the Dodgers. Randy Vásquez (5-1, 2.68 ERA) will start for the Padres.

News.Az 

By Nijat Babayev