SAN DIEGO — Blake Snell and four relievers allowed just one run on six hits Friday night and Trent Grisham’s third postseason home run proved to be decisive as the San Diego Padres defeated the Los Angeles Dodgers 2-1 to take a 2-1 lead in their best-of-five National League Division Series.
A Padres win Saturday night in San Diego would eliminate the Dodgers, who set a franchise record with 111 wins in the regular season.
Snell (1-0) earned the win, pitching 5 1/3 innings and holding the Dodgers to one run on five hits and two walks with six strikeouts.
Nick Martinez, Luis Garcia, Robert Suarez and Josh Hader then worked 3 2/3 scoreless innings, with Hader earning the save.
Martinez followed Snell in the sixth and retired both hitters he faced. Garcia struck out two in a perfect seventh. Suarez had a strikeout while retiring three straight after giving up a lead-off single to Trea Turner in the eighth. Hader struck out two in a perfect ninth.
Including the final two innings of San Diego’s elimination win over the Mets, and the last inning of a Game 2 loss in New York, the Padres’ bullpen has turned in 16 straight scoreless innings, allowing four hits and four walks with 20 strikeouts.
The Padres built a 2-0 lead through four innings, but had also stranded eight runners (six in scoring position) against Dodgers pitchers Tony Gonsolin and Andrew Heaney.
San Diego got on the board in the first against Los Angeles starter Gonsolin (0-1). Juan Soto doubled with one out and scored on Jake Cronenworth’s two-out single to center. But the Padres left runners on second and third in both the first and the second, when Heaney came on to get Gonsolin out of a two-on, one-out jam.
Grisham made it 2-0 in the bottom of the fourth with his third homer of the playoffs. Grisham, who hit .184 during the regular season, is 7-for-18 in six postseason games.
The Dodgers finally got on the board in the top of the fifth against Snell. Trayce Thompson opened the inning with a bloop single to right, moved to third on Austin Barnes’ double to left center and scored on Mookie Betts’ sacrifice fly to right, which was deep enough for Barnes to move to third.
But Snell got Trea Turner to foul out, then retired Freddie Freeman on a grounder to third.
–By Bill Center, Field Level Media
