The Dodgers saw enough of Randy Vásquez.
Given that the teams play again next week in Los Angeles, the Padres decided the best way to navigate this portion of the season was to give the Dodgers a different look and limit Vásquez’s exposure by using an opener on Saturday.
It might have taken a little longer because he did not begin his night until the third inning, but they eventually got to Vásquez and continued the horrific turn his season has taken.
A nine-run sixth inning had the Dodgers well on their way to a 15-3 victory.
Vásquez was not around for all of the Dodgers’ biggest inning in San Diego since 1977, but he was there at the start and responsible for enough.
A week after allowing seven runs (six of them earned and six of them in one inning) against the Rangers, the right-hander who began the season so promisingly allowed the Dodgers seven runs (five earned and all seven in one inning).
Vásquez’s ERA has risen nearly a full point (to 4.56) in his past two starts.
His ERA was 1.88 five starts in and 2.96 after 10 starts. But in six starts since then, his ERA is 7.63, and it is difficult to envision the Padres putting him on the mound against the Dodgers again soon.
In a game that marked the midpoint of the season, the Padres used an opener for the seventh time. It was the fifth time in 11 games that they did so and the first time in front of Vásquez.
Left-hander Kyle Hart became the first Padres opener to allow a run, but he was also the first to go more than one inning.
After he retired the Dodgers in order in the first inning and got Mookie Betts on a fly ball to start the second, Hart left a splitter up in the heart of the zone that Max Muncy pulled down the right field line for a triple after the ball bounced under the glove of a diving Fernando Tatis Jr. and rolled to the corner. Tommy Edman followed with a long fly ball over center fielder Jackson Merrill, who had taken a hard step in before running back.
That is the deficit Vásquez inherited, and he worked three scoreless innings to begin his night.
After the third of those, in the bottom of the fifth, Gavin Sheets launched a game-tying home run over the center field wall.
That would be the last time the Padres fans mixed in among the throng of Dodgers fans who took over Petco Park had anything to really cheer about.
Freddy Freeman began the sixth inning with a double and scored when Will Wagner could not handle a hard grounder by Muncy that would have been the second out.
Vásquez would face five more batters and not retire any of them.
First came a triple by Edman that scored Muncy, then a home run by Kyle Tucker and a homer by Dalton Rushing that made it 6-1. A walk by Kyle Freeland and single by Shohei Ohtani ended Vásquez’s night.
Ron Marinaccio walked Andy Pages, got a groundout from Freeman that scored Freeland and then surrendered a home run to Betts that made it 10-1.
It was the biggest inning against the Padres since the Yankees scored 10 runs in the seventh inning on May 6, 2025.
The Padres scored a run in the sixth and another in the seventh before the Dodgers added four in the eighth off Marinaccio and David Morgan.
Catcher Rodolfo Durán pitched the ninth inning.