Dodgers offense overwhelms Padres to complete sweep

SAN DIEGO — The Dodgers continued their offensive barrage with a 13-4 victory over the Padres on Wednesday night at Petco Park to complete a series sweep in San Diego and extend their winning streak to four games.

The Dodgers hit doubles (five of them), they hit singles, and even accepted gifts in the form of a two-run throwing error by third baseman Carlos Villanueva. The Dodgers’ own third baseman, newcomer Max Muncy, checked in with a two-run home run in the third inning in his first start with the team. “It’s always nice to get that out of the way,” Muncy said of his home run.

“Offensively this series was really fun to watch,” said manager Dave Roberts. “We’re not afraid to run a count, and we’re taking the walk when we need to. We talked about for this series to use the big part of the field, and Corey did it to perfection tonight.”

Corey Seager was in the middle of it all with two singles, two doubles and a walk, shaking off the early season doldrums by peppering Petco Park with more line drives, including 108 mph, 105 mph and 102 mph off the bat.

Seager in the three-game series in San Diego was 7-for-16 (.438) with three doubles and a walk. Wednesday was the sixth four-hit game of his career.

“For whatever reason I got a little more comfortable and put better, consistent swings on the ball,” Seager said.

Yasmani Grandal had two hits of his own to extend his hitting streak to eight games, and with his RBI double in the eighth inning now has an extra-base hit in three straight contests. He drove in eight runs in the series sweep of the Padres.

The Dodgers hung 10 hits and nine runs against Luis Perdomo, three more runs than he allowed in his first three starts of the season combined.

Perdomo’s career ERA against the Dodgers is now 9.55, in 33 innings.

Kenta Maeda labored in his 5⅔ innings, allowing four runs including a bases loaded walk (on an admittedly questionable call), but welcome to the world of fantastic run support.

Maeda wasn’t bad by any means, and struck out 10 on the night, his second double-digit strikeout game this season and third of his career. He has 23 strikeouts in 14⅓ innings this season, and a 34.8% K rate.

“Kenta really competed out there,” Roberts said. “I really thought he held his velocity well tonight, and he attacked.”

His 106 pitches thrown are the most by any Dodgers starting pitcher this season, helping to ease the burden on a bullpen that recorded 20 outs on Tuesday.

“He gave us the innings that we needed,” Roberts said. “Yesterday the way our pen was, this gave us an chance to reset.”

Maeda will get an extra day of rest before his next start, which comes Tuesday against the Marlins.

Notes

The 30 runs scored by the Dodgers in this series is the most they have ever scored in a series of any length at Petco Park, which opened in 2004.

The Dodgers have scored first in all four games of their winning streak, improving to 8-2 when touching home plate first. When their opponent opens the scoring in 2018, the Dodgers are 0-7.

Before this four-game winning streak the Dodgers were averaging 3.62 runs per game and scored seven or more runs three times in 13 games. They have now scored at least seven runs in four straight games, totaling 35 runs in the four-game winning streak.

Dodgers pitchers struck out 45 Padres in the sweep, the fourth-most in MLB for any three-game series in the last 106 seasons, per STATS LLC.

Wednesday particulars

Home run: Max Muncy (1)

WP - Kenta Maeda (2-1): 5⅔ IP, 7 hits, 4 runs, 2 walks, 10 strikeouts

LP - Luis Perdomo (1-2): 3 IP, 10 hits, 9 runs (7 earned),