Last week, the reigning champion Los Angeles Dodgers played a four-game series against the team that they took out in the National League Championship Series on their way to their second title in five seasons. This week, they have another series against a team they met on that path, the San Diego Padres. San Diego also trails Los Angeles by just two games in the NL West.
The Dodgers haven’t yet announced a probable starter, although Los Angeles manager Dave Roberts suggested that Matt Sauer would pitch, and the Padres will turn to Dylan Cease.
Let’s break down this matchup with some odds and lines at DraftKings Sportsbook.
Dodgers at Padres prediction, preview
This highly-anticipated series — the teams’ first meeting of the season — got off to a hot start last night, as the teams were knotted at six runs apiece after nine innings before Andy Pages and Tommy Edman lifted the Dodgers to an 8-6 lead and Tanner Scott did just enough to earn the save. Both offenses were on fire early — Los Angeles got to Nick Pivetta for eight hits and five runs in just four innings, while San Diego charged Dustin May with six runs in five innings of work — before cooling down later on as each team’s bullpen settled in. Between the early offense and the late-game drama, I’d sign up for five or seven games of this come playoff time (as long as the Dodgers win).
Both offenses have a good chance of staying hot today, given that neither team will send their best starter to the mound. Cease has been one of the Padres’ most disappointing players this season, having given up three or earned runs in each of his last four starts and sporting a 4.72 ERA overall. His pitches have been boom-or-bust: although he’s induced whiffs at a 92nd-percentile rate, he’s given up barrels at just a 17th-percentile clip. Los Angeles has been more boom than bust this season, so it should be well-suited to rough up Cease again. He pitched twice in last season’s NL Divisional Series, and the Dodgers got to him for 10 hits and eight runs in just five innings of work.
Sauer, on the other hand, doesn’t have much of an MLB track record, having made just one start and 20 additional relief appearances in his career, but in that short span, the numbers aren’t great: a 5.11 ERA, -0.2 WAR, and a 1.57 strikeout-to-walk ratio. But he has been significantly better this season than he was in 2024 with the Kansas City Royals, and he was okay enough in his sole start, pitching four innings of two-run ball in a 19-2 bludgeoning of the Athletics. Sauer hasn’t yet given up more than two runs in any appearance this season, and his chase rate, walk rate, hard-hit percentage, and ground-ball percentage would all rank in the MLB’s top quartile if he’d thrown enough innings to qualify.
Mets at Dodgers pick, best bet
Best Bet: Los Angeles Dodgers -1 (+126)
The underlying numbers are pretty good for Sauer, so I’m not incredibly concerned about his ability to put together four good innings, and with an off day coming up on Thursday, Dave Roberts can afford to stretch out his bullpen if he has to. Freddie Freeman is putting together arguably the best hitting season of his illustrious career, Mookie Betts is slashing .400/.455/.567 so far in June, and Shohei Ohtani is due to break his seven-game homer-less drought.
Strong Lean: Hyeseong Kim 2+ Hits (+550)
This is incredible value for Kim, who’s recorded two or more hits in eight of his 27 career MLB games — which would imply that +237 odds are the most fair number — and is hitting .410/.438/.590 so far in his career. Of course, the southpaw won’t hit north of .400 forever, and he tends to be in and out of the lineup, but he’s started each of the last four games and should do so again with a righty on the mound. Cease has given up five or more hits in four of his last five starts. He also throws his fastball more frequently to lefties than righties and given up a .291 expected batting average on the pitch.
