LOS ANGELES — The Padres held out hope Thursday afternoon.
“Right now we’re still focused on this division,” manager Mike Shildt said before his team’s game against the Dodgers. “We’re going to go and play tonight and be ready to compete and take this game down and go from there. We’re going to go as hard as we can as long as we can.”
That will still be required no matter that they no longer can win the National League West.
The Padres beat the Dodgers more times than they lost to them and made it more difficult on them than most years, but with a 7-2 victory on Thursday night at Dodger Stadium, the ultimate result was the same as it has been all but one year since 2013.
After scoring five runs in the seventh inning and two more in the eighth on Thursday, the Dodgers are division champions for the 11th time in 12 years.
That leaves the Padres, who now play the Diamondbacks in the final three games of the regular season, to fight to retain the NL’s top wild-card spot and the home series that comes with it.
None of the three teams vying for the two available wild-card berths played Thursday.
So the Padres, who clinched a playoff berth on Tuesday, fell to three games ahead of the Mets and Diamondbacks. The Braves are a game behind both of those teams.
New York and Arizona are the ones who have a chance to overtake the Padres.
They can fend off the Diamondbacks with one more victory, and they need a combination of wins and Mets losses that add up to two to assure the Mets stay behind them.
Even after losing twice in the past three days, the Padres finished 2024 with an 8-5 record against the Dodgers. It was the first time since 2010 they took a season series in what might actually be a rivalry now.
But the Dodgers still rule the West because, for whatever vulnerabilities they have, their offense remains a deep and dangerous strength.
Padres starter Joe Musgrove got through six scoreless innings with a 2-0 lead and had not allowed a run in three starts (18 innings) when he walked Max Muncy and Will Smith followed by launching a 3-1 fastball in the center of the strike zone 426 feet to center field to tie the game 2-2.
The Dodgers piled on against Tanner Scott, who came in with one out and did not get one of his own until after Kiké Hernández singled, Andy Pages reached on catcher interference, Shohei Ohtani had driven in Hernández with a single and Mookie Betts had driven in Pages and Ohtani with a single.
A two-run homer by Pages concluded the scoring.
Even though he walked off the field earlier than he wanted and with a lead lost, Musgrove’s 6⅓ innings were a strong finish to his injury-interrupted regular season.
The big right-hander, who missed almost half the season with elbow issues, has a 2.15 ERA in nine starts since coming off the injured list. Thursday was the fifth time in his past seven starts he went at least six innings and did not allow more than two runs.
The Padres rotation’s 2.35 ERA in 21 games this month is second-best in the major leagues.
The Padres had at least one man on in three of the first four innings before taking a 1-0 lead in the fourth on David Peralta’s one-out walk, a ground-rule double by Kyle Higashioka and a groundout to the right side by Luis Arraez that brought in Peralta.
Dodgers starter Walker Buehler finished the inning but was replaced by Evan Phillips at the start of the sixth.
The Padres scored a run off Phillips, as singles by Jurickson Profar and Manny Machado were followed by a sacrifice bunt by Jackson Merrill and a sacrifice fly by Xander Bogaerts.
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