The Los Angeles Dodgers and San Diego Padres meet for the first time this season on Monday, May 18 at Petco Park and with just half a game separating these two teams, it could make for some intense baseball in this early season NL West showdown.
The Dodgers are back in the top spot in the divisional standings after briefly being surpassed by their rivals to the south after a five-game winning streak. The Dodgers bats woke up from a slump over the final two games of their home rivalry series against the San Francisco Giants and throughout a three-game sweep of the Los Angeles Angels in Anaheim over the weekend with Shohei Ohtani seemingly turning a corner at the plate, but San Diego presents a different challenge than either of those teams.
Craig Stammen habló sobre la intensidad de la rivalidad entre Padres y Dodgers, destacando lo emocionante que es cada enfrentamiento entre ambos equipos.
Vía: @FiguezDSS#MLB#Padres#Dodgerspic.twitter.com/4N53BL0hs0
— D/S Sports MX (@dssportsmx) May 19, 2026
The Padres also have gotten off to a slow start offensively. Fernando Tatis Jr. notably has yet to hit a single home run in 193 plate appearances this season and has a .581 OPS, almost 200 points under his career low of .771 in 2023. Manny Machado and Jackson Merrill, two of the Padres’ other most impactful bats, have yet to provide said impact yet, either, with Machado slugging .327 — he’s never slugged below .400 in his 15 big league seasons — and Merrill’s .206 batting average down significantly from when he hit .292 in his All-Star rookie season in 2024.
Both of these teams have been able to stay atop the standings due to their pitching, but in different ways. For the Padres, Michael King and Randy Vásquez have been two stabilizing presences in a rotation that has been decimated by injuries all season long. Both of them are due to pitch in this series. The Dodgers, meanwhile, relied on their starters in the first few weeks of the season, but that’s changed as IL stints to Tyler Glasnow and Blake Snell have depleted their depth. But with Yoshinobu Yamamoto, Emmet Sheehan and Ohtani (and his MLB-leading 0.82 ERA) all set to go in San Diego.
The matchups are set. The stakes in the long run aren’t all that high in May, but it’ll be an opportunity for each side to get a look at how they match up in an NL West race that could stay this close down the stretch.
How to watch the Dodgers vs. Padres series this week
Monday, May 18
- Time: 6:40 p.m. PT
- Location: Petco Park, San Diego, California
- TV/streaming: Spectrum SportsNet LA (Dodgers), Padres.TV (Padres)
Tuesday, May 19
- Time: 6:40 p.m. PT
- Location: Petco Park, San Diego, California
- TV/streaming: Spectrum SportsNet LA (Dodgers), Padres.TV (Padres)
Wednesday, May 20
- Time: 6:40 p.m. PT
- Location: Petco Park, San Diego, California
- TV/streaming: Spectrum SportsNet LA (Dodgers), Padres.TV (Padres)
Dodgers vs. Padres pitching matchups
- Monday, May 18: Yoshinobu Yamamoto vs. Michael King
- Tuesday, May 19: Emmet Sheehan vs. Griffin Canning
- Wednesday, May 20: Shohei Ohtani vs. Randy Vásquez
Dodgers vs. Padres lineups
Here’s the lineup for each team ahead of the series opener between the Dodgers and Padres on May 18:
Dodgers lineup
- Shohei Ohtani, DH
- Mookie Betts, SS
- Freddie Freeman, 1B
- Kyle Tucker, RF
- Will Smith, C
- Max Muncy, 3B
- Andy Pages, CF
- Teoscar Hernández, LF
- Hyeseong Kim, 2B
Padres lineup
- Fernando Tatis Jr., 2B
- Miguel Andujar, DH
- Gavin Sheets, 1B
- Manny Machado, 3B
- Xander Bogaerts, SS
- Jackson Merrill, CF
- Nick Castellanos, RF
- Ramón Laureano, LF
- Rodolfo Durán, C
This article originally appeared on USA TODAY: Dodgers vs. Padres preview, lineups, pitching matchups