{"id":387582,"date":"2026-07-06T03:58:09","date_gmt":"2026-07-06T03:58:09","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/387582\/"},"modified":"2026-07-06T03:58:09","modified_gmt":"2026-07-06T03:58:09","slug":"eliezer-alfonzo-has-emotional-day-as-dodgers-lose-to-padres","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/387582\/","title":{"rendered":"Eliezer Alfonzo has emotional day as Dodgers lose to Padres"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

As the announcer called out his name in the lineup, Eliezer Alfonzo<\/a> hugged fellow Venezuelan Miguel Rojas before the catcher walked down the dugout to greet his teammates and coaches. The two had written messages on their caps in silver ink: On Alfonzo\u2019s, \u201cEyP, RIP,\u201d the initials of his stepmother Patricia and his younger sister Eliana. On Rojas\u2019, a cross was drawn next to \u201cAlfonzo\u201d and below \u201cFuerza Matatan.\u201d In other words, stay strong, Matatan, the nickname given to Alfonzo\u2019s father, the former major league catcher Eliezer \u201cEl Matat\u00e1n\u201d Alfonzo<\/a>.<\/p>\n

An unimaginable weight rested on his shoulders when Alfonzo stepped into the batter\u2019s box to a standing ovation. Alfonzo\u2019s stepmother and sister were reportedly found dead after the earthquakes in Venezuela last month.<\/p>\n

The Dodgers<\/a> catcher had previously clung to hope that the two, who had been reported missing, would be found. His father had searched tirelessly for his wife and daughter, his hope bolstered when he found the family\u2019s dog alive. Alfonzo\u2019s father stayed in the country, searching, when the Dodgers called his son to let him know he\u2019d join the team.<\/p>\n

The series finale with the Padres should\u2019ve been a happy day. Most players who have toiled in the minor league system debut in front of applauding friends and family. Instead, Alfonzo\u2019s first appearance, the culmination of nine tireless years, was somber in the Dodgers\u2019 5-2 loss<\/a> to the Padres.<\/p>\n

Even manager Dave Roberts was lost for words.<\/p>\n

\u201cDon\u2019t really know what to say about it outside of my heart goes out to him and his family,\u201d he said before the game.<\/p>\n

Alfonzo went 0-for-2 in an otherwise quiet Dodgers (59-32<\/a>) game. Emmet Sheehan gave up an RBI single to Padres\u2019 center fielder Jackson Merrill in the fourth inning. In the fifth, he pitched himself into a jam, giving up a successive walk and double that put two runners in scoring position. With no room for error, Sheehan was quickly replaced by Jack Dreyer, who escaped the inning scoreless.<\/p>\n

Sheehan (4-6) has now had five straight starts that lasted no more than five innings. But, having given up only one earned run in the series closer to the Padres (44-45), Sheehan\u2019s start could be viewed as a step in the right direction: only three hits and five strikeouts.<\/p>\n

The Dodgers, who lead MLB in batting average (.265), remained hitless until Rojas broke through with a single in the fifth. The pressure ratcheted up in the sixth when Shohei Ohtani and Andy Pages worked walks off Yuki Matsui, who replaced JP Sears. The Padres switched pitchers again before Mookie Betts\u2019 two-out at-bat, and the move paid off. Betts hit a routine flyball, and the inning \u2014 and the Dodgers\u2019 momentum \u2014 ended.<\/p>\n

However, emotions remained high on both sides. San Diego\u2019s manager Craig Stammen and coach Ryan Goins were ejected three pitches into the game after arguing a check-swing call. The ejection seemed to spark the Padres back from a season-high eight-game losing streak. After scoring in the fourth, San Diego extended its lead in the seventh courtesy of Fernando Tatis Jr. and Manny Machado.<\/p>\n

Tatis Jr. beat out a throw from Rojas to Freddie Freeman, driving in one run. And though the Dodgers challenged, the call was upheld. Then, two batters later, reliever Kyle Hurt threw a four-seam fastball down the middle of the plate, and Machado rocketed the pitch to the center field wall beyond the grasp of a leaping Pages.<\/p>\n

The Dodgers clawed back two runs in the seventh. Alex Freeland drove in one on a line-drive RBI-single. Ohtani added another one. Neither was enough to win, though it ensured the Dodgers weren\u2019t blanked.<\/p>\n

Still, the game\u2019s result seemed minuscule when stacked against Alfonso\u2019s personal tragedy and the earthquake\u2019s destruction in Venezuela. And, as the country and its people begin to piece together the full toll of the destruction amid the rubble, Sunday\u2019s game was a pause for reflection, a reminder of forces bigger than baseball.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"As the announcer called out his name in the lineup, Eliezer Alfonzo hugged fellow Venezuelan Miguel Rojas before…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":387583,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[27],"tags":[6132,426,144977,140984,1431,6314,20359,423,48,52,51,47,50,49,3493,3835,2674,24631,74,156254,156255],"class_list":["post-387582","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-los-angeles","tag-andy-pages","tag-dodgers","tag-eliezer-alfonzo","tag-emmett-sheehan","tag-family","tag-father","tag-fourth-inning","tag-game","tag-la","tag-la-headlines","tag-la-news","tag-los-angeles","tag-los-angeles-headlines","tag-los-angeles-news","tag-manny-machado","tag-mookie-betts","tag-padres","tag-rojas","tag-san-diego","tag-seventh-courtesy","tag-stepmother-patricia"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/387582","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=387582"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/387582\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/387583"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=387582"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=387582"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=387582"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}