Yu Darvish outdueled Blake Snell on Friday night and the San Diego Padres tied the visiting Los Angeles Dodgers for first place in the National League West with a 2-1 win.
Darvish (3-3) allowed just one run on one hit and one walk over six innings, striking out five. He retired 10 of the last 11 batters he faced in a successful bounce-back from his previous start against Los Angeles on Sunday, in which he went only four innings and permitted four runs.
San Diego’s vaunted bullpen took care of things over the last three innings. Jason Adam handled the seventh, Mason Miller worked around control issues in the eighth and Robert Suarez got the final three outs for his MLB-high 34th save.
Snell (3-2) pitched well enough to win, giving up two runs on six hits over seven innings and a season-high 97 pitches. He walked two and fanned five.
After firing six scoreless innings on Saturday night in a 6-0 shutout of the Padres, Snell entered the fourth with a 1-0 edge. Rookie Alex Freeland had given him the lead by rifling his first MLB homer into the right field seats with one out in the third.
But Snell found trouble by walking leadoff man Fernando Tatis Jr. Luis Arraez bunted him to second then Manny Machado delivered a first-pitch RBI single to right-center. Ryan O’Hearn singled Machado to third and Xander Bogaerts lined a sacrifice fly to center that easily scored Machado.
The Dodgers created golden scoring chances in the eighth and ninth. Miller put himself in harm’s way in the eighth by walking Michael Conforto and Freeland, but he induced a 3-6-1 double play out of pinch hitter Dalton Rushing. First base umpire Chris Guccione called Rushing safe, but his call was overturned after a replay review.
In the ninth, Mookie Betts singled with one out and Freddie Freeman singled him to third with two outs. But Suarez fired a 102 mph fastball past Teoscar Hernandez to end the game.
–Field Level Media
