Dodgers pitcher Emmet Sheehan delivers during the first inning of a baseball game against the San Diego Padres, Sunday, June 28, 2026, in San Diego. (AP Photo/Denis Poroy)
Dodgers pitcher Emmet Sheehan delivers during the first inning of a baseball game against the San Diego Padres, Sunday, June 28, 2026, in San Diego. (AP Photo/Denis Poroy)
Dodgers pitcher Emmet Sheehan delivers during the first inning of a baseball game against the San Diego Padres, Sunday, June 28, 2026, in San Diego. (AP Photo/Denis Poroy)
Dodgers designated hitter Shohei Ohtani (17) comes up to bat during the first inning of a baseball game against the San Diego Padres, Sunday, June 28, 2026, in San Diego. (AP Photo/Denis Poroy)
Dodgers designated hitter Shohei Ohtani watches his RBI single during the third inning of a baseball game against the San Diego Padres, Sunday, June 28, 2026, in San Diego. (AP Photo/Denis Poroy)
Dodgers designated hitter Shohei Ohtani watches his RBI single during the third inning of a baseball game against the San Diego Padres, Sunday, June 28, 2026, in San Diego. (AP Photo/Denis Poroy)
San Diego Padres’ Manny Machado (13) hits a solo home run during the fourth inning of a baseball game against the Dodgers Sunday, June 28, 2026, in San Diego. (AP Photo/Denis Poroy)
San Diego Padres’ Manny Machado hits a solo home run during the fourth inning of a baseball game against the Dodgers, Sunday, June 28, 2026, in San Diego. (AP Photo/Denis Poroy)
Dodgers’ Mookie Betts watches his RBI single during the fifth inning of a baseball game against the San Diego Padres, Sunday, June 28, 2026, in San Diego. (AP Photo/Denis Poroy)
Dodgers’ Mookie Bettswatches his RBI single during the fifth inning of a baseball game against the San Diego Padres, Sunday, June 28, 2026, in San Diego. (AP Photo/Denis Poroy)
San Diego Padres shortstop Xander Bogaerts, top, throws over Dodgers’ Max Muncy (13) as he tries to turn a double play during the fourth inning of a baseball game Sunday, June 28, 2026, in San Diego. (AP Photo/Denis Poroy)
Dodgers designated hitter Shohei Ohtani (17) is welcomed into the dugout after scoring during the fifth inning of a baseball game against the San Diego Padres, Sunday, June 28, 2026, in San Diego. (AP Photo/Denis Poroy)
San Diego Padres pitcher Yuki Matsui delivers during the fifth inning of a baseball game against the Dodgers, Sunday, June 28, 2026, in San Diego. (AP Photo/Denis Poroy)
Dodgers pitcher Alex Vesia delivers during the sixth inning of a baseball game against the San Diego Padres, Sunday, June 28, 2026, in San Diego. (AP Photo/Denis Poroy)
San Diego Padres’ Jackson Merrill (3) steals second base ahead of the tag of Dodgers shortstop Mookie Betts (50) during the sixth inning of a baseball game, Sunday, June 28, 2026, in San Diego. (AP Photo/Denis Poroy)
SAN DIEGO – The three MVPs have been there in the Dodgers’ lineup pretty much all season. But they haven’t often played like it at the same time.
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Shohei Ohtani, Freddie Freeman and Mookie Betts drove in all of their runs as the Dodgers beat the San Diego Padres 4-2 Sunday afternoon to take two of three in the weekend series at Petco Park.
The two rivals will meet again next weekend in a four-game series at Dodger Stadium. The edge has been taken off the rivalry, though, as the Dodgers’ lead in the National League West swelled to 10 games with the series win.
Padres starter Michael King gave up a run in the third inning on Ohtani’s RBI single, then made his own trouble in the fifth, walking two and hitting Andy Pages with a pitch (for the second time in the game) to load the bases with one out.
King got ahead of Freeman quickly, 0-and-2. But Freeman worked the count full, fouled off three pitches and took the ninth pitch of the encounter, a changeup low and inside. The pitch was called ball four, sending Freeman to first base and forcing in the go-ahead run.
It was close enough to challenge, but the Padres did not.
Four pitches later, a sinker from King caught too much of the plate and Betts lined it into left-center field for a two-run single.
Ohtani and Freeman overcame their own rough patches some time ago. Betts had not – until recently.
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Reluctant though Betts has been to proclaim his season righted, the numbers do it for him. Batting under .200 through June 13, Betts is 18 for 52 (.346) since then with three doubles, five home runs and 10 RBIs in 13 games since. Sunday was his third multi-hit game in the past five, during which he is 9 for 22.
Dodgers starter Emmet Sheehan made it through five innings with just one mistake – a 2-and-1 slider that Manny Machado ripped at 106.9 mph off the bat for a solo home run in the fourth inning.
But the Padres hit four balls with exit velocities of 100 mph or higher in that fourth inning and Sheehan had to work around a walk and a hit batter in the fifth, prompting Dodgers manager Dave Roberts to give him an early hook.
Alex Vesia took the first shift out of the bullpen and was slow to cover first base when Freeman made a sprawling stop on Jackson Merrill’s ground ball to his right. Merrill beat it out for an infield single, stole second base on a pickoff attempt and scored on Xander Bogaerts’ single off Vesia’s replacement, Will Klein.
Klein stranded the tying runs on base when he struck out Sung-Mun Song to end the sixth. The two-run lead went from Klein to Tanner Scott, who put it in peril in the eighth inning when he gave up a leadoff double to Machado and hit Ty France with a pitch. Scott stranded them both when he struck out Bogaerts and got Miguel Andujar to bounce into a double play.
Edgardo Henriquez closed it out in the ninth, becoming the seventh Dodgers pitcher to record a save this season.
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