As soon as Saturday’s baseball game commenced at Dodger Stadium, the sky outside sparkled with fireworks in celebration of the Fourth of July.
Yet, the real show inside the stadium was reserved for the sixth inning when Freddie Freeman ignited the packed crowd during the Dodgers’ 3-0 triumph over the Padres.
In an unexpected pitching contest featuring All-Star Yoshinobu Yamamoto and Griffin Canning, who had an ERA above 7.00, Freeman made the defining play with a solo home run on his third at-bat, which firmly secured the Dodgers’ lead and ultimately the series victory.
Until that critical juncture, Yamamoto’s performance was practically flawless, preserving the Dodgers’ narrow 1-0 advantage, which had been earned in the third inning through an RBI single by Andy Pages.
However, once Canning exited the mound, Freeman made a stunning introduction to reliever Kyle Hart, sending a definitive reminder of his power with a home run on the third pitch, marking his 15th of the season. Notably, this was the same day he was selected to his 10th career All-Star Game.
“Every one is special,” Freeman said. “So looking forward to next week.”
While that blast only made it a two-run game, it felt like much more the way Yamamoto was dealing.
After working around three singles in the first two innings, then stranding his lone walk of the night in the fourth, the right-hander validated his own All-Star selection from earlier in the day, retiring 11 of his last 12 batters to complete a scoreless seven-inning outing.
From there, all the Independence Day crowd had to do was wait for the actual postgame fireworks show.
Alex Vesia stranded a Padres runner in the top of the eighth with a three-pitch strikeout. Freeman stretched the Dodgers’ lead with the bottom of the inning –– against Padres superstar closer Mason Miller, no less –– with an RBI single. And in the ninth, Will Klein collected his second save of the season.
What it means
After dramatic come-from-behind wins in the first two games of this series, the Dodgers (58-31) produced a much more straightforward wire-to-wire victory Saturday, one that knocked the Padres (43-45) out of second place entirely in the division.
Now, the Arizona Diamondbacks are the next-closest team in the standings. But even they remain a whopping 14 games back as the All-Star break nears.
The Dodgers have taken this opportunity to pull away in the division –– with two series against the Padres in the span of two weeks –– and ran with it by winning five of six games so far against their Southern California rivals.
“We’ve got a good team, and we’re playing really good baseball,” Freeman said. “That’s what happens.”
Who’s hot
It was no surprise to see Yamamoto make the All-Star team.
The bigger question now is whether he can make a push for Cy Young contention.
The third-year Japanese right-hander has been pitching at that level over the last couple months, having allowed just nine runs in 54 ⅔ innings in his last eight starts to lower his ERA to 2.49.
That mark is now the sixth-lowest in the National League. His nine wins are also tied for sixth-most.
For now, Yamamoto was simply happy to be selected to the NL team, even though he is unlikely to pitch in the Midsummer Classic with his next outing scheduled for next Saturday (three days before the game).
“I was there and [felt] happiness and honor last year,” Yamamoto said through his interpreter. “I tasted it last year. Going back there is meaningful to me.”
Who’s not
Pages. Not this year.
Last summer, Pages admitted he was “bothered” when he failed to make the All-Star Game, narrowly missing out thanks largely to a late June slump.
Thus, this year, Pages made a point of not paying attention to his All-Star status, even as he ended up beating Michael Harris II to the wire in fan voting for the NL’s final starting outfield spot.
“I’m really proud of the work that I’ve been doing and to have the opportunity,” Pages said in Spanish, before joking that he could only block All-Star talk out so much in recent weeks around his teammates in the clubhouse.
“They’ve been telling me that it was possible that I could make it, that I could be selected, but I always was trying to wait until I was selected. You just don’t know until the end of all the selections.”
Pages has cooled off since his scorching start to the season, hitting just .217 since May 29. Nevertheless, he has remained a key run producer at the top of the Dodgers’ lineup, with his RBI single on Saturday putting him back in a tie for the MLB lead with 63 this year.
Up next
The teams conclude this four-game series with a Sunday Night Baseball showdown, when Emmet Sheehan (4-5, 5.08 ERA) will face Padres left-hander JP Sears (1-1, 6.97 ERA).