Mike Shildt had a plan.
The Padres manager pulled his starting pitcher in the fifth inning Wednesday against the Dodgers and began playing the matchup game.
It worked for only a short time before unraveling into a 5-2 loss.
“That’s the way it goes, right?” Shildt said. “You can have a plan, and if it goes well, fantastic. It’s supposed to have gone well.”
This one blew up on a misplayed grounder by Adrián Morejón, the first reliever Shildt turned to, and a walk and Teoscar Hernández’s tie-breaking three-run homer in the sixth inning against Jeremiah Estrada, the second reliever Shildt lined up to navigate the Dodgers’ dangerous lineup.
“He was managing with urgency,” Dodgers manager Dave Robert observed of Shildt.
Said Shildt: “We had a rested bullpen, we had guys that we really liked and thought it was pretty clean.”
Roberts clearly had a plan of his own, and he instituted it aggressively.
And it was decisions made a day earlier that put the Dodgers in good position to win the series on Wednesday.
The Dodgers, who won Monday’s opener 8-7 in 10 innings, got through Tuesday’s 11-1 Padres victory by essentially giving up midway through. They had Matt Sauer throw 111 pitches while giving up nine runs and then turned to position player Enrique Hernández to pitch 2⅓ innings at the end.
That set them up to use seven relievers to navigate the final five innings Wednesday’s game after opener Ben Casparius went four innings at the start.
“They got the matchups they wanted,” Xander Bogaerts said. “That’s why they took yesterday’s loss. It might look bad, but it paid off.”
Shildt was only going to allow starter Randy Vásquez to go through the Dodgers’ lineup twice.
And Vásquez almost did it without allowing a run.
With Morejón warming up, ready to come in when the lineup turned over and leadoff hitter Shohei Ohtani came up a third time, Vásquez got the first out of the fifth inning before sending a fastball to the heart of the strike zone that Michael Conforto sent over the wall in center field to tie the game 1-1.
Vásquez followed with a strikeout before Morejón came in to face the left-handed-hitting Ohtani, who grounded out to shortstop to end the inning.
Morejón struck out Mookie Betts to open the sixth and got a comebacker from Freddie Freeman for what could have been the second out before the ball went off Morejon’s glove.
“After looking at the video a couple times, it looked like I was off balance by a little bit, maybe on one foot,” Morejón said through interpreter Jorge Merlos. “Nothing but just a grounder right there. Nothing more than that.”
With two right-handers due up, Shildt went to Estrada.
That is where the plan really crumbled.
Estrada walked Will Smith and had a fastball in the heart of the zone hit by Teoscar Hernández over the wall in center field to give the Dodgers a 4-1 lead.
“You can’t walk the first hitter when you come in,” Estrada said. “Couldn’t locate the slider. I tried to put a heater up to (Teoscar Hernández). Left it down.”
The Padres got a run back, but they left runs on the field as well. They had a runner thrown out at home in the second inning, didn’t score despite loading the bases with one out in the seventh and having Luis Arraez and Manny Machado up.
The Dodgers, who added a run in the ninth against Wandy Peralta, employed an opener for the second straight day, though Casparius made it through four innings on Wednesday.
Lou Trivino, who worked one inning at the start Tuesday, was the first of seven relievers used by Roberts.
The Padres took a 1-0 lead in the second inning that seemed like it could have been more but was also fortunate to happen at all.
Gavin Sheets, Bogaerts and Jake Cronenworth hit successive one-out singles, but that is not what put the Padres up. Instead, there were two outs after the third of those singles, as Sheets was tagged out at home after being waved home from second on Bogaerts’ hit to center field.
It was a bold send with one out and center fielder Andy Pages not playing all that deep. But it did take a 99 mph bullet by Pages, the hardest throw by a Dodgers outfielder this season, and quick tag by Smith to get Sheets.
The Padres did not come up empty when Casparius walked Jose Iglesias and Martín Maldonado to bring in Bogaerts before Fernando Tatis Jr. flied out to right field on the first pitch he saw.
The Padres got a run on a walk, a single, an error and a sacrifice fly against Jack Dreyer in the sixth but Kirby Yates came in to end the inning by getting Bogaerts on a line drive to right field.
Michael Kopech walked three straight batters with one out in the seventh before being replaced by Anthony Banda, who got Arraez to pop up and Machado to ground out on a 3-0 pitch.
Roberts went to closer Tanner Scott in the eighth, and he retired the heart of the order in succession. Alex Vesia finished the game with a 1-2-3 ninth.
“Today came down to who capitalized on the opportunities that were there,” Shildt said. “Morejón came in and did a great job to finish out Ohtani. But we had a missed play and a walk that preceded Hernández’s swing. And they walked six, and we couldn’t overly capitalize more than we did the one Maldy at-bat. So, they gave us opportunities. We gave them a few opportunities. They just capitalized a little bit more.”
