{"id":899580,"date":"2026-06-28T23:41:23","date_gmt":"2026-06-28T23:41:23","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/899580\/"},"modified":"2026-06-28T23:41:23","modified_gmt":"2026-06-28T23:41:23","slug":"offensive-takeaways-from-dodgers-series-win-over-padres","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/899580\/","title":{"rendered":"Offensive takeaways from Dodgers’ series win over Padres"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

SAN DIEGO\u00a0\u2014\u00a0The Dodgers claimed a series win against the San Diego Padres with a 4-2 victory<\/a> Sunday, widening the gap between division rivals to 10 games<\/a>. <\/p>\n

The Dodgers<\/a> (54-30<\/a>), who have the best record in the majors, have won five of the first six games of a three-city trip that ends in Sacramento.<\/p>\n

A bounce-back start from right-hander Emmet Sheehan made the Dodgers\u2019 win Sunday possible. He held the Padres to one run, on Manny Machado\u2019s fourth-inning homer, through five innings.<\/p>\n

It was the first time Sheehan held an opponent to a single run since May 8, when he threw 4\u2154 innings against the Atlanta Braves.<\/p>\n

Shortstop Mookie Betts\u2019 bat stayed hot, as his bases-loaded single off Padres starter Michael King served as the big hit in the Dodgers\u2019 three-run rally in the fifth inning.<\/p>\n

Over the course of the three-game series, the Dodgers outscored the Padres 20-12. <\/b>Here are offensive takeaways from the series:<\/p>\n

Tucker \u2018grinding\u2019 through<\/p>\n

Dodgers right fielder Kyle Tucker never had been through a stretch like this before. He entered Sunday with a .719 on-base-plus-slugging percentage, the lowest he\u2019s had 77 games into a season in his career.<\/p>\n

\u201cI feel fine coming to the field and everything, it\u2019s just not being as productive as I normally am, or as I want to be, kind of sucks,\u201d Tucker said in a conversation with The Times a couple of weeks ago. \u201cBut I\u2019ve just got to come back for the next at-bat, or the next day, and whatever, and just move on.\u201d<\/p>\n

Has battling this uncharacteristic slump taught him anything?<\/p>\n

\u201cI\u2019d rather not suck,\u201d he said. \u201cBut just try and grab through and just whenever anything works or clicks or whatever, just don\u2019t let it go.\u201d<\/p>\n

Tucker has had moments this season when it looked like he was heading toward an offensive turnaround.<\/p>\n

In mid-April, he homered twice in three games, including a three-hit performance. In early May, he went on a six-game hitting streak. He hit .303 over a nine-game stretch in mid-June. But none led to sustained success.<\/p>\n

So, when Tucker logged three hits, including a home run, on Saturday as the Dodgers routed the Padres 15-3, he was cautious in his optimism. Tucker even nitpicked the nine-pitch at-bat that ended in the pull-side homer.<\/p>\n

\u201cThere were some pitches I swung at earlier in the at-bat that I thought should\u2019ve gotten the job done earlier, just didn\u2019t put a great swing on it,\u201d he said after the game.<\/p>\n

Manager Dave Roberts was more enthusiastic about that at-bat.<\/p>\n

\u201cHe\u2019s handled it well,\u201d Roberts said. \u201cHe\u2019s frustrated, certainly. But he hasn\u2019t run from the work. Even [Friday] night after the game, he was hitting in the cage. \u2026 You hear the word \u2018grind\u2019 a lot, but he\u2019s grinding. It\u2019s good to see him have some success. I just liked that one at-bat tonight where it was just compete. It wasn\u2019t about mechanics. It was about competing and getting the job done.\u201d<\/p>\n

On Sunday, Tucker singled in four at-bats. <\/p>\n

Edman\u2019s consistency<\/p>\n

There were times last year when utility player Tommy Edman could look at video of his swing and think, \u201cOK, that doesn\u2019t look like how I want it to look.\u201d But there was only so much he could do in the middle of the season, while playing through nagging ankle issues.<\/p>\n

\u201cPart of it is kind of just breaking habits that I built last year,\u201d said Edman, who underwent surgery on his right ankle in the offseason. \u201cWas just getting into some bad movements with the lower body, probably just compensating for the ankle, and hips get out of whack, and that kind of stuff. So I\u2019m hopeful that I\u2019ll just be able to keep this up the rest of the year and just be consistent with it.\u201d<\/p>\n

Since returning from the injured list on June 16 to make his season debut, Edman is hitting .333 (11 for 33) with a .405 .on-base percentage. He hit his first triple and second double of the season in the Dodgers\u2019 blowout win Saturday.<\/p>\n

\u201cI feel like this is kind of one of the rare times where both swings feel good, both from the right and left,\u201d switch-hitting Edman said after that game. \u201cIt\u2019s really tough to maintain both swings over the course of the season, so just happy that I feel that way.\u201d<\/p>\n

Betts is back<\/p>\n

When Betts went three for four, a triple short of the cycle, in the Dodgers\u2019 series finale in Minnesota last week, he couldn\u2019t put his finger on a cue that had snapped his swing into shape over the last couple of weeks.<\/p>\n

\u201cToday, I was able to just find something,\u201d he said then. \u201cI don\u2019t even know really what I found. After the home run the first at bat, I wasn\u2019t sure what I did, but I just kind of stayed there. And I think that was the beauty of it. And not really fully knowing and just kind of going to play kind of let me know my training is paying off.\u201d<\/p>\n

It continued playing off. That performance kicked off a three-game homer streak. And at the end of it, Betts had raised his OPS from .591 to .737.<\/p>\n

By Saturday night, Roberts was ready to declare that Betts was back.<\/p>\n

\u201cI say \u2018back\u2019 because I just think there\u2019s more intent with him in the batter\u2019s box and a lot less indecisiveness,\u201d Roberts said. \u201cSo for me, if he can have that kind of proactive approach, aggressive approach, then everything else is going to take care of itself.\u201d<\/p>\n

Betts had two hits and two RBIs on Sunday.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"SAN DIEGO\u00a0\u2014\u00a0The Dodgers claimed a series win against the San Diego Padres with a 4-2 victory Sunday, widening…\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":899581,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":"","_share_on_mastodon":"0"},"categories":[41],"tags":[89026,2442,95788,1910,364361,18044,1266,2749,364363,8037,26804,10201,5950,62,88439,124365,67,132,68,364362],"class_list":["post-899580","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-mlb","tag-big-hit","tag-dodgers","tag-edman","tag-game","tag-great-swing","tag-kind","tag-mlb","tag-mookie-betts","tag-offensive-takeaway","tag-padres","tag-roberts","tag-run","tag-season","tag-sports","tag-three-game-series","tag-tucker","tag-united-states","tag-unitedstates","tag-us","tag-win-sunday"],"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/pubeurope.com\/@us\/116830384084871064","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/899580","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=899580"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/899580\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/899581"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=899580"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=899580"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=899580"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}