LA Final Score: Dodgers leave seven on base and fall to Padres, 4-2

The Dodgers opened their final home series of the season on Tuesday against the division rival San Diego Padres, losing the first game of a must-win series by a final score of 4-1.

Rookie Landon Knack was tasked with making his 12th start of the season against Michael King and entered Tuesday with a top-10 ERA and strikeout total in all of baseball.

After a quick first-inning shutout that eliminated the top of the San Diego lineup, Shohei Ohtani punished King’s first pitch of the game down the right field line and jumped over the wall for an automatic leadoff double. His 95th extra-base hit broke another Dodgers record as he passed Babe Herman for the most extra-base hits in a single season in franchise history.

Mookie Betts then brought Ohtani home when his former World Series-winning teammate Xander Bogaerts committed a throwing error while trying to catch Betts at first, giving the Dodgers the early lead.

Entering Tuesday’s game, Jake Cronenworth had zero RBI in September. After a base hit by Jackson Merrill, Cronenworth scored his first two runs batted in of the month with a two-run home run that gave San Diego a one-run lead.

The Dodgers had a golden opportunity to answer in the bottom half of the second inning when Will Smith, Miguel Rojas and Ohtani all got on base against King to load the bases with two out, and the winning run was just 90 feet removed. The chance was squandered when Mookie Betts chased a sweeper out of danger.

King averaged 21 pitches per inning in his first three innings that night, while Knack only needed 38 pitches to complete the same number of innings. The fourth inning spelled doom for the Dodger rookie as he allowed an RBI single to Bogaerts and an RBI double to Cronenworth to extend San Diego’s lead to three. Knack surpassed his pitch total from his last three innings and needed 39 pitches to work through the fourth inning, which promptly ended his night after four innings.

22-year-old right-handed pitcher Edgardo Henríquez made his major league debut when he came on in the seventh inning and impressed in his only inning, allowing just one single to Kyle Higashioka while ending the inning with a 101 strikeout Miles per hour finished Fernando Tatis Jr.

The Dodgers tried to repeat what they did on Sunday against the Colorado Rockies, where they staged a comeback and secured a walk-off win. Will Smith opened the inning with a single, Tommy Edman and Kiké Hernández followed him, cutting the deficit to two runs. In a stunning turn of events as Miguel Rojas gave the go-ahead shot, the Padres executed a 5-4-3 triple play at the end of the game to cut the division lead to two games and officially clinch the victory for the second time in the a postseason berth the last three seasons.

Game details

• Home runs: Jake Cronenworth (17)
• WP – Michael King (13-9): 5 IP, 3 hits, 1 run (0 earned runs), 2 walks, 3 strikeouts
• LP – Landon Knack (3-5): 4 IP, 5 hits, 4 earned runs, 1 walk, 4 strikeouts
• SV – Robert Suarez (35): 1 IP, 3 hits, 1 earned run, 0 walks, 0 strikeouts

Next

The Dodgers are back at home for the second of their three-game series on Wednesday against San Diego (7:10 p.m. PT, SportsNet LA). Jack Flaherty will start for the Dodgers, while ace Dylan Cease will start for the Padres.