San Diego Padres at Los Angeles Dodgers: Final Score & Recap

The San Diego Padres handed the Los Angeles Dodgers a 5-2 defeat at UNIQLO Field at Dodger Stadium on July 5, 2026, a result that defied the DiamondIQ model's pre-game estimate of a 69 percent probability of a Dodgers win. San Diego managed the game's only run through six innings, with Jackson Merrill's fourth-inning single off Emmet Sheehan providing the game's first meaningful push, registering a win-probability swing of plus 9.2 percent. The Dodgers' best counter came in the bottom of that same frame, when Freddie Freeman grounded into a double play off JP Sears, a sequence that swung win probability by minus 9.4 percent from Los Angeles's perspective and effectively snuffed out the home team's most dangerous moment of the game.

The seventh inning settled the matter decisively. Manny Machado's home run off Kyle Hurt added 17.2 percent in win probability to San Diego's ledger, and Luis Campusano followed with a single that compounded the damage by another 10.0 percent, part of a four-run top-seventh frame that transformed a narrow contest into a comfortable Padres margin. Fernando Tatis Jr. also contributed meaningfully throughout, his fifth-inning double off Sheehan worth plus 8.6 percent in win probability. Among position players, Machado led all batters with a combined WPA of plus 26.0 and an RE24 of plus 3.4, while Campusano finished at plus 13.8 WPA and Tatis at plus 11.2.

On the mound, JP Sears was the game's most valuable arm by the DiamondIQ model's accounting, finishing with a WPA of plus 32.4, aided significantly by the Freeman double-play groundout that erased what could have been a Dodgers breakthrough. Jack Dreyer added plus 20.4 WPA in relief, and Bradgley Rodriguez contributed plus 6.9. The Padres exited with eight hits and no errors, while Los Angeles managed only four hits against a pitching staff that allowed the Dodgers' pre-game probability advantage to evaporate entirely by the final out.