ANAHEIM -- It's getting crowded at the top in the National League West.
A little late life from the bats was not enough for the Dodgers to come all the way back after Yoshinobu Yamamoto gave up six runs, all earned, for the first time in his Major League career. The Dodgers fell, 7-4, to the Angels on Monday night in the Freeway Series opener -- and their lead in the division shrank to one game over the Padres.
Shohei Ohtani's 42nd home run of the season -- his 100th at Angel Stadium -- and Max Muncy's three-run drive got the Dodgers within striking distance in the eighth inning, but they couldn't keep the momentum going and went down in order against Angels closer Kenley Jansen in the ninth.
"This was a bad loss for us," Muncy said. "There's not really a way of getting around that."
The Dodgers' divisional lead is the smallest it has been since June 14, when they held a one-game edge over the Giants. One day prior, they had been tied with the Giants for first place -- but the Dodgers have not been out of the top spot in the division altogether since April 27.
Since extending their NL West lead to a season-high nine games at the end of play on July 3, the Dodgers have gone 12-19. In the same timespan, the Padres have gone 21-12 -- and swung big to bolster their roster ahead of the July 31 Trade Deadline, while the Dodgers opted to improve on the margins.
"I don’t think anyone is blind to the fact that the standings are the standings," manager Dave Roberts said. "It’s gotten a lot more interesting. So we’ve got to go out there and play good baseball.
“I definitely think that our guys are starting to feel that urgency. It’s been long enough of middling baseball -- as far as overall team wins and losses."
While the Dodgers meant to be proactive by pushing back Yamamoto's start to Monday, giving him a full week off in between outings, the extra day of rest did not have the intended effect. He labored through the first inning, surrendering a leadoff home run to Zach Neto and walking a pair before Yoán Moncada added on with an RBI single.
Yamamoto kept the Angels off the board in his next three innings, despite issuing another pair of walks, but things got out of hand in the fifth. The right-hander loaded the bases without recording an out, on back-to-back singles and a hit-by-pitch before giving up a two-run knock to Mike Trout.
The Angels plated another pair of runs on another base hit from Moncada and a groundout from Gustavo Campero, and Yamamoto's evening came to an end when he walked Luis Rengifo with two outs in the fifth. Five walks matched Yamamoto's Major League career high, which he set earlier this year on June 13 against the Giants. Monday marked the fourth time in 23 starts that he was not able to complete at least five innings.
"It was a first-pitch home run. After that, I gave up another run. That kind of threw me off rhythm," Yamamoto said through interpreter Yoshihiro Sonoda. "As the game went on, I was trying to make a few adjustments, but unfortunately I didn't make them."
With a team-leading 126 2/3 innings under his belt, Yamamoto has long blown past the 90 regular-season innings he pitched as a big league rookie. He entered Monday with a 3.16 ERA pitching on five days' rest compared with a 1.40 ERA on six or more days of rest, another factor that could have influenced the decision to push him back.
Yamamoto said that he did not ask for extra rest, but he welcomed having an additional day off.
The Padres are nipping at the Dodgers' heels after this latest stumble, setting up a meaningful next couple of weeks. The two NL West rivals play each other six times in a stretch of 10 days, starting this weekend at Dodger Stadium, to close out their season series.
The Padres have been playing some of their best baseball of late. The Dodgers will need to emulate that to protect their divisional lead.
"It's not going well for us right now. We got to find a way to snap out of it," Muncy said. "No one's going to feel sorry for us. So it's on us to find our way out of it, and we need to do it."