SAN DIEGO -- Monday was another Padres-Dodgers epic. The two National League heavyweights renewed their rivalry with a 10-inning thriller. In a game with twists and turns like that one, there were plenty of reasons why San Diego came out on the losing end.
But the biggest was a simple one: The Padres ran out of pitching. Nick Pivetta lasted just four innings, but the issue ran much deeper than that. Only twice in the first 11 games of this brutal 27-day stretch had a Padres starter lasted six innings (Pivetta, twice). The Padres’ bullpen has been taxed -- heavily.
So, in the aftermath of that defeat, Padres manager Mike Shildt was as candid in speaking about his rotation as the ultra-positive Shildt ever gets.
"We're piecing it together and competing at the same time," Shildt said. "But we're going to need some depth out of some starters."
Enter Dylan Cease.
The Padres right-hander was back to his dominant best on Tuesday night, as the Padres responded emphatically by evening the series with an 11-1 victory over the Dodgers, their largest win over Los Angeles in 30 years. Luis Arraez, Manny Machado and Xander Bogaerts pounded out three hits. Martín Maldonado homered.
The Padres didn’t need a lights-out version of Cease. But Cease was lights-out nonetheless, striking out 11 Dodgers over seven scoreless innings while allowing just three hits (all singles). More importantly, his performance had ripple effects bigger than merely Tuesday night.
“That was very timely,” Shildt said afterward, “for obvious reasons.”
The Padres are in Day 12 of a stretch on the calendar they’ve had circled for a while. Ultimately, they’ll play 26 games in 27 days, with a number of those games against fellow contenders (including seven against the Dodgers). Really, it’s the worst possible time for their bullpen to end up taxed by shorter outings from starting pitchers.
Cease knew that. And a day like this one wholly resets that tax.
“If you can give the ’pen a breather or help save guys, it makes the team stronger,” Cease said. “Today was definitely important.”
On a personal level, too. No sugarcoating it: It has been a rough year for Cease. He has twice finished top-five in Cy Young voting, but he entered play Tuesday with a 4.72 ERA, ranking fifth highest among all NL qualifiers. In the meantime, injuries have hit the Padres’ rotation, with the status of Michael King and Yu Darvish still unclear.
“It’s been frustrating,” Cease said. “It’s not fun not contributing. I’m really just continuing to work. There’s still a lot of season left. Hopefully, I can really make a big impact.”
If this is the beginning of that, Cease couldn’t have picked a better time. His next scheduled start presumably comes against the Dodgers, as well. With Tuesday’s victory, the Padres moved within a game of L.A. in the standings, tied in the loss column with both the Dodgers and Giants.
Additionally, because of the offensive onslaught, the San Diego ’pen finally got a much-needed respite after 10 straight days of close games. It will get another on Thursday with a scheduled off-day. The Padres can attack Wednesday’s series finale with a mostly fresh bullpen.
“That’s Cease, man -- he came out there dealing,” Machado said. “He threw the ball really well. We really needed that from him. … It’s going to be huge for us moving forward.”
It was perhaps a statement of sorts from Cease that his turnaround came against … them. No, he hasn’t been himself this season. Really, he hasn’t been himself since losing to the Dodgers in Game 4 of the NLDS. That day, Cease lasted all of 10 batters, as the Padres squandered a chance to clinch at home.
It’s hard to heap too much fault on Cease for that start, given the circumstances. He was making his first career start on three days’ rest. The Padres needed it after Joe Musgrove’s elbow injury in the Wild Card Series. Still, Cease had to sit with that outcome for an entire offseason.
But in the aftermath of Tuesday’s outing against the team that ended his season last year, Cease insisted he wasn’t drawing a line between the two.
“I really just want to beat everyone I pitch against, to be honest,” Cease said. “It didn’t end well for me last year. But that was last year, and I kind of just flushed it and went into this start, decided to be aggressive and committed to it.”