Yu Darvish struck out 11 in six big innings to become the fastest major league player to strike out 1,500 in his career. Manny Machado and Jake Cronenworth homered and the San Diego Padres beat the Los Angeles Dodgers 6-2 on Monday to open a three-game series between the NL West rivals.
Darvish (7-2) hit 1,500 strikeouts in 197 starts. He limited the Dodgers to two hits, including a home run by Mookie Betts, and only walked one.
After two entertaining series with limited capacity, this was the first time the two teams had seen each other in a packed stadium, after California activated its reopening plan last week. All 42,220 fans sold out, and appeared to be split in half between Dodgers and Padres supporters.
Darvish’s only major mistake was allowing Betts’ home run with two outs in the third. That ended a series of seven straight strikeouts for Darvish.
Julio Urías (9-3) took the loss.
For the Dodgers, the Mexican Julio Urías 1-0.
For the Padres, Fernando Tatis Jr. 3-2 with two runs scored. Jurickson Profar from Curaçao 1-0. Puerto Rican Víctor Caratini 4-1.
–
