Wild throw in ninth inning allows Dodgers to even series with Padres
This time, an overturned call began the wildness in the ninth inning.
The Dodgers’ 5-4 victory, which evened a series that has so far been 18 innings full of of suspense, turned when the Dodgers got a man on base on a walk and the ensuing runner made a baserunning mistake but ended up on third base when Padres closer Mason Miller committed the first error of his career.
Miller began the ninth inning with an out and then appeared to get a second one, but his full-count slider was just off the bottom outside corner of the plate and was successfully challenged by Max Muncy. So after being called out on strikes, Muncy took his base on balls.
He was replaced at first base by pinch-runner Alex Call, who took off running before Miller could deliver an 0-1 pitch to Andy Pages. Miller turned a threw toward first base as Call stopped less than a third of the way to second and began leaning back toward first. But Miller’s throw, a soft 86.1 mph for him but too hard for the moment was wide to the left and glanced off France’s glove.
“Just let it speed up on me a little bit and then yanked it,” Miller said. “Probably threw it a little harder than I should have too.”
Said France: “It cut a little bit, but I should have caught it.”
As the ball bounced into foul territory down the right field line, Call took off and got to third uncontested.
Pages then hit the ninth pitch of his at-bat in the air to Fernando Tatis Jr. in right field. Tatis' throw, which was headed slightly up the line, was smartly cut off by Sung-Mun Song, who turned and fired to home, where Call slid in just before catcher Freddy Fermin's tag.
“Good plate appearance from Pages,” Miller said. “Good long at-bat and just barely got it done. So, unfortunate for sure.”
Will Klein retired the Padres in order in the ninth to end the second straight thriller played by the two teams atop the National League West.
A night earlier, Miller's ninth inning turned around following a successful ABS challenge by catcher Rodolfo Durán in the Padres' 1-0 victory.
“Great baseball overall,” Manny Machado said. “… Good at-bats, pitching held up both teams. Just overall good baseball.”
Monday, Miguel Andujar's first-inning homer provided all the scoring.
Two-run homers by Freddy Freeman in the top of the first inning, Manny Machado in the bottom of the first and Andujar in the third produced Tuesday's first six runs and had the Padres up 4-2 on Tuesday.
With a run on a double off third base that would have been an out and two groundball outs in the fifth and Freeman's second home run of the game in the sixth, the Dodgers tied it 4-4.
Shohei Ohtani led off the game by sending a Griffin Canning slider on the outer edge the other way to left field for a double. And with one out, Canning sent a fastball to the middle of the strike zone that Freeman sent the other way and just over the left field wall.
The Padres were not down long, because they continued to do something they had been unable to do much the first seven weeks of the season.
After scoring in the first inning just eight times in their first 45 games, they did so for a third straight day when Emmet Sheehan walked Gavin Sheets and then gifted Machado a fastball down the middle that the Padres' third baseman hit 404 feet to left field.
It was a fastball left up near the heart of the zone that Andujar blasted for his second home run in two days to give the Padres a 4-2 lead.
Canning yielded a lead-off single in the second and walked the first batter in the third but retired the next three batters both times. He ran an out streak to six with a 1-2-3 fourth inning before bad luck hit hard.
At the start of the fifth, Teoscar Hernandez pulled a ground ball down the third base line that Machado was waiting for, but the ball bounced off the bag and over his head as Hernandez ran to second base with a double. Groundouts by Hyeseong Kim and Ohtani scored Hernandez.
Jeremiah Estrada relieved Canning at the start of the second and had his fifth pitch, a splitter low and inside a smidge of the plate, launched 399 feet.
Estrada got the next three outs, as a battle between two of the league's deepest bullpens was on.
Sheehan was replaced by Edgardo Henriquez to start the fifth, and he got the next four outs before Alex Vesia replaced him to get the final two outs of the sixth.
After Bradgley Rodriguez retired the three batters he faced in the top of the seventh, the Padres got something going in the bottom of the inning against Blake Treinen when Tatis lined a single into center field and Andujar walked.
Left-hander Tanner Scott was called in to replace Treinen, and Stammen replaced the left-handed-hitting Sheets with Ramón Laureano, who sent a line drive to left field that Hernandez ran down in front of the wall to end the inning.
Before Scott worked anothert scoreless inning, Adrian Morejón worked through a gauntlet in the top of the eighth.
After surrendering a leadoff double to Ohtani and having him go to third base on a flyball out by Betts, Morejón struck out Freeman and got cleanup hitter Kyle Tucker to ground out.
“A good game between two really good teams,” Canning said. “… A fun game to be a part of. Just a disappointing loss.”
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This story was originally published May 19, 2026 at 10:56 PM.