Nestor Cortes pitches a gem as Padres beat Dodgers again, take sole possession of first place

Kevin Acee, The San Diego Union-Tribune on Aug 23, 2025

Published in Baseball

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SAN DIEGO — Nestor Cortes is a filler the Padres felt they needed.

In his fourth start since being acquired at the trade deadline, Cortes took a perfect game into the sixth inning and helped lift his new team back into first place alone in the National League West.

The left-hander threw six scoreless innings at the start of a 5-1 victory over the Dodgers that moved the Padres a game ahead in the division race.

Both teams have 32 games remaining in the regular season. Sunday marks the last time the teams will face each other.

The Padres waited out and then jumped on Dodgers starter Tyler Glasnow, driving him from the game after a three-run fourth inning.

They loaded the bases at the start of the fourth on two walks and a single before Ramón Laureano drove in two runs with a one-out single and Jake Cronenworth drove in a third run with a sacrifice fly.

The Padres added two runs in the eighth inning against reliever Justin Wrobleski. Xander Bogaerts followed walks by Fernando Tatis Jr. and Manny Machado with a double.

Cortes, who had allowed seven runs over 15 innings in his first three Padres starts, had no such trouble in an economical outing that ended after 81 pitches in six innings.

Two batters after allowing his first hit of the night, Cortes waved off Padres manager Mike Shildt, who was coming out of the dugout, and proceeded to retire Shohei Ohtani for a third time to complete the sixth inning.

It was the second time in two days the Padres’ starting pitcher allowed just one hit to one of the major leagues’ top offenses. It was the first time opposing starting pitchers held the Dodgers to one or zero hits over at least six innings in successive games since at least 1958.

While the one hit Yu Darvish allowed was a home run, and he also hit a batter and walked one, a one-out single by Miguel Rojas in the sixth inning gave the Dodgers their only baserunner against Cortes.

It was the first time in 92 career starts that Cortes made it through five perfect innings.

Befitting the nature of the game — with every victory precious as the Padres seek their first division title since 2006 and the first-round playoff bye that could accompany it — Shildt went to his bullpen to start the seventh inning.

Jason Adam worked a 1-2-3 inning for the second straight day.

Jeremiah Estrada came on in the eighth to face a team he had struggled against this year, allowing eight runs in five innings.

The first batter he faced was Tesocar Hernandez, who had hit two home runs against Estrada this season, including one that stood as the deciding run eight days earlier in Los Angeles.

Estrada struck him out on three pitches before yielding a home run to pinch-hitter Alex Freeland that made it 3-1.

After getting a flyout, Estrada was replaced by lefty Adrian Morejón, who took four pitches to strike out left-handed-hitting pinch-hitter Michael Conforto.

After the Padres added on, Morejón set the Dodgers down in order in the ninth.

The bullpen locking down a game was further confirmation of how the Padres have constructed their pitching staff for the stretch run and — they hope — the postseason.

Cortes was a bonus. He was acquired as an insurance policy.

The 30-year-old, who is from the same Miami-area neighborhood as Manny Machado, was acquired from the Brewers along with an 18-year-old minor league infielder and more than $2 million to pay down his salary in exchange for Triple-A outfielder Brandon Lockridge.

He is supposed to be what Martín Pérez was last year — a guy to fill out the rotation for the remainder of the regular season, maybe be in the bullpen during the postseason. If he is starting in October, it means things went wrong or he suddenly became the 2022 All-Star version of himself in September.

That at least seems possible now.

Cortes was coming off an odd start in which he allowed the Giants four runs on three homers in the first inning and then yielded just three hits over the rest of an outing that lasted through the first two outs of the sixth inning without the Giants scoring again.

From the start Saturday, he mixed every one of his four pitches to all spots around the strike zone and had the Dodgers mostly befuddled. When they did hit it hard, it was right at a defender.