Latest notes, Padres-Dodgers edition. We’ll start with the Padres:
• After acquiring Mason Miller, the Padres asked him about the role he envisioned in their bullpen. Miller immediately responded, “I’m here to do anything to help the team.” Great answer, but one that theoretically could hurt him this offseason in his first crack at salary arbitration.
The saves statistic, while perhaps the game’s least important, is still highly valued in arbitration. Postseason performance, however, also is part of the criteria. Which is why Miller is not especially worried about how his salary might be affected now that he no longer pitches exclusively in the ninth inning.
“It is valuable to be part of a winning team,” Miller said. “Had I stayed with the A’s, maybe I end up with another 10 saves. It’s impossible to project it really. Holds don’t quite (count) the same as saves. But they count a little bit.”
Since joining the Padres, Miller is 1-for-2 in save opportunities with four holds. The A’s have had five save opportunities — and are 5-for-5 using four different relievers while going 12-9 since trading Miller and left-hander JP Sears to San Diego on July 31.
The execution 🤌 pic.twitter.com/wOCGICoXvH
— San Diego Padres (@Padres) August 23, 2025
Miller said the Padres told him, “Don’t worry about roles going forward. Just worry about performing and helping us win games.” Easy for a team to say, perhaps, particularly when saves are more lucrative for a reliever in arbitration than postseason performance. But since A.J. Preller took over as general manager in August 2014, the Padres have never taken a player to a hearing.
Robert Suarez, a potential free agent, also told the Padres after the acquisition of Miller that he would pitch in any role the team desired. He remains the closer, but Jason Adam, heading into his final year of arbitration, is another Padres reliever who has willingly accepted pitching earlier in games.
First baseman/DH Ryan O’Hearn, a potential free agent, has taken the same team-first approach as the relievers, even though he is playing less against left-handers than he did before the Baltimore Orioles traded him to the Padres.
“If I go to the playoffs and World Series, I figure I’ll be fine in free agency,” O’Hearn said. “Teams want to see you perform in the postseason. This team is going to get there.”
• O’Hearn thought he would be traded to one of four teams — Boston, Milwaukee, Texas or Houston. He actually asked Orioles GM Mike Elias if he could be sent to one of the Texas teams so he could be closer to his home in Dallas, but knew his request carried only so much weight.
“Which I get,” O’Hearn said. “He’s got to do his job.”
O’Hearn said lefty DL Hall and other players with the Brewers texted him, saying, “Hey, we put in a good offer for you.” So, on the eve of the deadline, he chose to remain in Baltimore rather than fly with the Orioles to Chicago. Right-hander Charlie Morton, who ultimately was traded to Detroit, also stayed back.
“There were so many rumors,” O’Hearn said. “I was thinking it could be Boston. Boston was right up the street. Why am I going to fly to Chicago? I was just like screw it, I’ll stay here.”
Outfielder Ramón Laureano, on the other hand, figured that if he was traded while in the middle of the country, he would have easy access to either coast or anywhere in between.
Entering Sunday, Laureano was slashing .338/.393/.584 with four home runs in 21 games for the Padres. (Harry How / Getty Images)
Laureano, it turned out, made the better choice. O’Hearn, after getting news of the deal, had to fly from Baltimore to San Diego. Both were surprised the Padres acquired them. Laureano was especially surprised to be packaged with O’Hearn.
“Elias told me, ‘You and Ryan.’ I was like, ‘What the f—? That’s crazy, bro.’” Laureano said. “I told A.J. (Preller), ‘You’re nuts, bro. That’s nuts.’”
In return for O’Hearn and Laureano, the Orioles acquired six 2024 Padres draft picks, including 19-year-old left-hander Boston Bateman, a second-rounder who now ranks as their No. 9 prospect, according to MLB.com.
• Sears expected to be moved, figuring he most likely would land with a large-market club. Like Laureano, he was surprised to be part of a package. He described being traded with Miller as “crazy,” but was grateful it ended up that way.
Sears’ wife, Aileen, and Miller’s wife, Jordan, are close. Sears was traded once before, from the New York Yankees to the A’s as part of the Frankie Montas deal at the 2022 deadline. Getting dealt with Miller, “eased it mentally for my wife, for the little logistical things.”
“That’s one cool thing about the A’s, the last two or three years,” Sears said. “The biggest thing I’ll miss is we had a really great group of guys there. It was a younger group. Everybody was at the same age, newly married, or newly started dating. All our wives were really good friends.”
• The day before facing the Dodgers, Padres left-hander Nestor Cortes said, “Obviously with this bullpen, it’s hard to get into the fifth or sixth inning. If the game is close and you’ve got some type of traffic, they’re going to be quicker to unload these guys out of the ‘pen.”
Cortes pitched 4 2/3, 4 2/3 and 5 2/3 innings in his first three starts with the Padres, respectively. On Saturday he took matters into his own hands, retiring the first 16 hitters before Miguel Rojas broke up his perfect game with a single in the sixth. Cortes retired the next two hitters, then was removed after 81 pitches.
It was the first time he faced the Dodgers since last year’s World Series, when he allowed a walkoff grand slam to Freddie Freeman on a first-pitch fastball in Game 1 and recovered to pitch 1 2/3 scoreless innings in Game 3.
“It is what it is,” Cortes said of the Freeman slam. “It happens in baseball. It sucks that it happened to me and it happened in the biggest stage of the game. But it’s just another learning experience for me.
“I had to be more mindful of the type of hitter Freddie Freeman is, the legend that he is, future Hall of Famer. I think if I make my pitch there, maybe I get a better result. But the thing about this game is you always have opportunities to redeem yourself. Here I am with a chance to redeem myself again.”
His performance Saturday won’t erase the memories of the Freeman slam, one of the most indelible moments in recent baseball history. But Cortes retired Freeman and Mookie Betts twice each and Shohei Ohtani three times.
Now, the Dodgers:
• Earlier this month, Mookie Betts told reporters, “My season’s kind of over,” saying it will be impossible to reach his normal numbers, and that he will just try to do what he can to help the team.
Those comments seemingly liberated Betts — he has batted .348 with two homers and an .874 OPS in his last 17 games. But Betts was dismissive of that notion, saying he simply has found a cue that is working for him. After recovering from his early-season illness, he tried too hard to generate power. Now that he’s focusing on singles, he’s in a better place.
“I’m slapping some singles around, hit a couple of homers,” Betts said. “Still not normal. But anything is better than what I was doing.”
Betts, though, looks better and better defensively at shortstop, defying some even in the Dodgers’ organization who were skeptical he could succeed at the position.
Entering Sunday, he was tied for second among shortstops in Defensive Runs Saved, trailing only the Tampa Bay Rays’ Taylor Walls. In Outs Above Average, he was tied for 10th.
Has he proven to himself that he could play short?
“I feel like that was mostly to y’all, not to me,” Betts said. “I know what I’m capable of, what I can do.”
• After scoring just two runs in their first two games against the Padres over the weekend, the Dodgers avoided a sweep Sunday with an 8-2 victory. Looking back, their sweep of the Padres last weekend at Dodger Stadium is all the more surprising, considering the bottom of their lineup recently has resembled the bottom of the Padres’ lineup before the deadline.
SHOTIME. pic.twitter.com/AIYilF058d
— Los Angeles Dodgers (@Dodgers) August 24, 2025
Starting with the return of Kiké Hernández early next week, the Dodgers will start to look more whole. Hyeseong Kim, Max Muncy and Tommy Edman are in various states of recovery from their respective injuries. Once all are back, the Dodgers will be better positioned to address their offensive deficiencies, particularly in left field, where they entered Sunday ranked 23rd in OPS.
The pending returns of the injured players will jeopardize the roster spot of Michael Conforto, whom the Dodgers signed last offseason to a one-year, $17 million contract. Conforto, manager Dave Roberts’ “pick to click” during spring training, is batting .183 with a .606 OPS.
• One option for the Dodgers is to move Teoscar Hernández from right to left, where he made the majority of his starts last season. It’s somewhat of a case of pick your poison: Do the Dodgers want opponents stretching singles to doubles if Hernández is in left, or going first to third when he is in right?
Hernández, 32, was on the injured list from May 6-18 with a left groin strain. Roberts said he is playing with a “governor,” at times exerting less than full effort, so he can keep himself in the lineup. But, the manager added, “As we get to this point in the season, the governor is put in the garage.
“I don’t want to condemn him for it. His value is to be out there,” Roberts said. “He’s 32. He’s playing outfield. You can’t have every NFL receiver who is 30 years old run perfect full-on routes. They’ve got to manage it a little bit. I could say, everything is the last play of the World Series or the Super Bowl. But I’m trying to have a little more sympathy and understanding.”
Hernández said he has faced questions about his defense his entire career.
“People are always going to say something when something bad happens,” he said. “I’ve got to deal with it, try to get better, try to make the plays. That’s the only thing I can do — try, try, keep trying, try harder if I have to. Keep moving forward.”
• With 20 home runs in nearly 1,000 major-league plate appearances, outfielder Alex Call isn’t exactly known as a slugger. Yet his only home run as a Dodger, a 453-foot shot at Coors Field on Tuesday, stands as the team’s longest of the season. Call, 30, was tickled by his achievement:
For real?? pic.twitter.com/5PVFYX3kDU
— Alex Call (@ACAD_27) August 21, 2025
Call’s previous club, the Washington Nationals, is deep in young outfielders, so he suspected he might get moved at the deadline. A friend with another team informed him the New York Yankees were doing background work on him. The Athletic’s Matt Gelb reported the Philadelphia Phillies were interested. Ultimately, the Dodgers acquired him for two minor leaguers.
“On deadline day, I was just watching the ticker, relaxing at home,” Call said. “Then all of a sudden, I got a call. (Nats interim GM) Mike DeBartolo said we traded you to the Dodgers. I was like, ‘The Dodgers!’”
Call turned to his wife, Samantha, while still talking to DeBartolo and mouthed the word, “Dodgers” in excitement.
The first thing that crossed his mind?
“I’m going to the World Series.”
• Dodgers rookie infielder Alex Freeland opened the season at Triple A as the No. 68 prospect in the game, according to The Athletic’s Keith Law, but blocked at every infield position.
Freeland, 24, knew he was behind even one of his teammates at Triple A — Kim, whom the Dodgers signed out of Korea last offseason to a three-year, $12.5 million free-agent contract.
“I didn’t want to get too ahead of myself — I figured he’d be up there, too,” Freeland said. “I tried not to worry about what the plan was. I just wanted to play, stay healthy and have a good attitude about it. And things worked out.”
Freeland knew that prospects on teams with stacked major-league rosters try to impress not just their parent club, but the 29 other teams as well. But instead of getting traded at the deadline, he was summoned by the Dodgers on July 29 to replace, of all players, the injured Kim.
Playing both second and third base, he has acquitted himself well, to the point Roberts twice batted him fifth this week. After hitting home runs in each of the first two games against the Padres, Freeland went 0-for-4 on Sunday, and is now batting .226 with a .729 OPS.
(Top photo of Mason Miller: Norm Hall / Getty Images)
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