LOS ANGELES — Yu Darvish pivoted on top of the mound to watch Freddie Freeman’s grounder roll through a hole on the left side of the infield, leaned back and looked briefly to the sky.
Freeman had just sent the eighth pitch he saw from Darvish in the third inning the other way for a run-scoring single. And Darvish in that moment had the look that said what every Padres player and everyone who roots for them is wondering.
What is it going to take to beat these guys?
They did not seem close to cracking the code Sunday, as the Dodgers completed a three-game sweep with a 4-0 victory at Dodger Stadium.
It was the Dodgers’ eighth win in 10 games against the Padres this season and 12th in the past 13 games the teams have played at Dodger Stadium.
Late Saturday night, manager Bob Melvin said, “We have to solve these guys at some point in time.”
The Padres have, for better or worse, nine regular-season games to try to do so.
The teams will meet nine times in September — a series in L.A. (Sept. 2-4) and two series in San Diego (Sept. 9-11 and 27-29).
The Padres, who have lost four straight games and fallen to sixth among the six National League playoff spots, trail the team with the best record in the major leagues by 14½ games in the NL West.
“They’re the dragon up the freeway that we’re trying to slay,” Padres Chairman Peter Seidler said during an in-game interview on ESPN, referring to the Dodgers, who have won 11 straight season series against his team.
It will take more than the pebbles and sling shot the Padres brought to Chavez Ravine on Sunday.
The visitors managed two hits and four baserunners.
The Dodgers have outscored the Padres 55-18 this season. The Padres have scored more than two runs in just three of the games and have not topped four runs in any of them.
Sunday, they managed two hits off Dodgers left-hander Tyler Anderson, who walked one batter and took just 84 pitches to complete seven innings. Juan Soto’s second walk of the game, against Craig Kimbrel in the ninth inning, gave the Padres their final baserunner.
Darvish lost his second of three matchups with Anderson this season. In the last one, on July 2, he gave up five runs on eight hits in six innings. Sunday, Darvish allowed just two runs on seven hits in six innings.
The Dodgers got more than enough runs for their eighth consecutive victory with two two-run innings courtesy of Cody Bellinger and Freeman.
On back-to-back pitches with one out, Bellinger hit a 2-2 sinker in the heart of the zone a projected 404 feet over the wall in center field and Mookie Betts sent a cutter just below the heart of the zone bouncing off the wall just below where Bellinger’s homer had sailed.
Darvish got the second out on Trea Turner’s long fly ball to right field and got ahead 0-2 on Freeman, who would take two balls and foul off a couple pitches, including a dastardly cutter off the handle of his bat two pitches before his RBI single drove in Betts.
Against Luis Garcia in the seventh inning, Bellinger again hit a one-out homer. His shot, to virtually the same spot as his first, was his fifth home run in 10 games against the Padres this season. He has 10 in his other 90 games.
After Betts flied out, Turner reached on a dribbled single up the third-base line, stole second and scored on a single by Freeman.
