J.D. Martinez homers early as Dodgers outlast Padres

LOS ANGELES-- J.D. Martinez's crowning achievement Saturday against the San Diego Padres was not the only one he's hit versus a big league pitcher this week.

The first came versus teammate Michael Grove in a simulated at-bat at the Dodgers' Camelback Ranch facility in Arizona, where Martinez was attempting to come back from a bout with lower back tightness. After 3 days of practice at-bats, Martinez declared himself prepared to return.

In 2 games given that he was activated from the hurt list, Martinez looks like the batter the Dodgers signed for $10 million to be their designated player in 2023. His three-run homer in the very first inning against Joe Musgrove made the distinction in the Dodgers' 4-2 victory over the Padres.

The Dodgers can finish a three-game sweep of their National League West competitors on Sunday at Dodger Stadium.

Mookie Betts also struck a home run Saturday in support of beginning pitcher Julio Urías (5-3), who pitched seven strong innings in his 2nd successive start against San Diego.

Urías permitted solo home runs to Juan Soto and Ha-Seong Kim in the very first two innings, when Dodger Stadium was primarily bathed in sunshine for the afternoon contest. Urías permitted just one struck the rest of the method, striking out 4 batters and strolling none.

Evan Phillips pitched a scoreless 8th inning. Brusdar Graterol got 2 quick outs in the ninth, then enabled consecutive singles to Xander Bogaerts and Nelson Cruz to extend the inning.

With left-handed player Jake Cronenworth batting, representing the winning run, supervisor Dave Roberts summoned southpaw Caleb Ferguson from the bullpen to tape the last out. Ferguson started out Cronenworth, making his very first conserve given that 2018.

Martinez singled in his go back to the lineup Friday, practically three weeks after he initially suffered the back injury.

Batting 5th on Saturday, Martinez followed songs by Freddie Freeman and Max Muncy with a 407-foot blast to left field, his 5th home run of the season.

Freeman had 2 of the Dodgers' 8 hits.

The Dodgers (25-15) are a season-high 10 video games over.500 and lead the third-place Padres (19-21) by 6 games in the National League West.