Fiery Padres hold off Dodgers, avoid sweep after manager ejected early

After eight straight losses, and five in a row to the Dodgers in the last two weeks, the Padres had evidently had enough.Three pitches into Sunday’s game, both manager Craig Stammen and infield coach Ryan Goins were ejected for arguing a check swing call against Fernando Tatis Jr.–– a seemingly performative outburst to fire up their slumping squad.Whatever the intended effect, it appeared to work for the Padres, who managed to salvage something from this nightmarish four-game series at Dodger Stadium with a 5-2 win over the Dodgers.For most of the late afternoon contest, the game moved as excitingly as the upper-deck shadows across the infield.Neither team had a hit through the first three innings.

The scoring wasn’t opened until an RBI single from Padres outfielder Jackson Merrill in the fourth.And even then, the proceedings lacked little in the way of excitement or intrigue.Dodgers starter Emmet Sheehan only lasted 4 ⅔ innings, limiting the damage to just the one run despite an inefficient 96-pitch outing.Padres left-hander JP Sears, meanwhile, reversed his scuffling form after entering the day with a near-7.00 ERA, holding the Dodgers scoreless over a five-inning outing in which he didn’t allow his first hit until a Miguel Rojas single in his second-to-last at-bat.Finally, the Padres pulled away in the seventh, tagging Dodgers reliever Kyle Hurt with four runs –– including three on a back-breaking blast from Manny Machado.The Dodgers got two runs back in the bottom of the seventh, on RBI singles from Alex Freeland and Shohei Ohtani, but got no further.For one day, at least, the Padres had something to celebrate against their NL West rivals.In the grand scheme, not much.The Dodgers (59-32) remain 14 games clear of the Padres (44-45), who climbed back into a tie for second place in the division.They maintain the winningest record in baseball, and all but certain odds of another NL West crown.What they did miss out on was what would’ve been their...