Padres projected lineup for NLDS Game 5 vs. Dodgers

LOS ANGELES — The Padres haven’t scored a run in 15 innings. Over the course of a long season, that’s barely a blip. You’d simply wait for it to revert to normalcy — and eventually it would. (Before those 14 innings, after all, the Padres had scored 16 runs in the previous 11 innings.)

But in a short series, things feel a bit more … urgent. In no uncertain terms, the Padres play one of the biggest games in franchise history tonight. And they’re doing so with an offense that went cold on Wednesday.

After L.A. utilized a bullpen game on Wednesday, the Dodgers will go with Yoshinobu Yamamoto in the winner-take-all-game tonight. But Yamamoto struggled in his NLDS Game 1 start against the Padres, allowing five runs over three innings, and he wasn’t fooling any of the hitters.

“It doesn’t matter [who is pitching],” Manny Machado said. “You’ve got to hit the ball.”

Indeed, that’s the important part. The Padres lineup — the best in franchise history — needs to do more of what it did in the first 167 games of the season and less of what it did on Wednesday. But is there a way to make things easier on that offense? Let’s take a look.

What’s the current situation?

As effective as the Padres lineup has been all year, it’s somewhat straightforward from a matchups standpoint. Their 2-3-4 of Fernando Tatis Jr., Jurickson Profar and Machado is a lane for a right-handed reliever. Tatis and Machado bat right-handed, and Profar is a better hitter from the right side.

Those three faced exclusively right-handers on Wednesday. There’s no reason to think they’d see anything different on Friday.

Meanwhile, there’s an obvious lane for a left-hander, with lefties Jackson Merrill, David Peralta and Jake Cronenworth potentially hitting fifth, seventh and eighth, respectively. (You’d think Peralta has to start over Donovan Solano, considering what Peralta has already done this series.)

Can they make it tougher on the Dodgers’ bullpen?

“If you have lefties and righties, there’s going to be lanes,” manager Mike Shildt said. “We’ve been able to create a lineup that has been able to put our guys in a good position with those lanes. No lineup is fool-proof from a lane.”

That may be true. But, in theory, the Padres could make those lanes a bit trickier. They could, say, put Merrill in the No. 3 spot, in between Machado and Tatis (which would drop Profar, the lineup’s only switch-hitter, into the No. 5 spot). They could also put Bogaerts between Peralta and Cronenworth, splitting those two lefties.

If you’re drawing up a lineup that best combats the pitching lanes the Dodgers used in Game 4, here’s what it looks like:

That lineup rotates left and right, with one switch-hitter in the middle of it all. It would presumably mean at-bats for Merrill and Cronenworth against right-handed pitching and for Tatis and Machado against lefties. At surface level, those are good things. But…

Here’s why the Padres won’t — and shouldn’t — do it

This is Game 5 of the NLDS against the rival Dodgers. The Padres have operated one way for 168 games. It’s worked. They posted the second most successful season in franchise history and the best record in the Majors after the All-Star break.

The Padres are going to stick with what got them here. Anything else would run against their ethos. The Dodgers have mixed and matched and used gamesmanship regarding their starting lineup and starting pitching. San Diego doesn’t operate that way.

“We’re more like Vince Lombardi — power sweep, here it is,” Shildt said. “… Our lineup was pretty good for 10 runs, six runs, five runs [earlier in the series]. This is who we are, and we’re going to compete and execute. If we do that, we’ll shake hands and pop champagne.”

Fair enough. As Machado said, it comes down to execution. If the Padres can execute — if they get to one Dodgers pitcher early — it throws those plans entirely out of whack. The Dodgers’ bullpen isn’t infinite, and the reality is: they were running out of arms at the end of Wednesday’s game. But they had an eight-run lead, so it didn’t hurt them.

“It sets the tone for the whole game if they’re going to have to pivot or audible,” said Merrill. “They didn’t have to [on Wednesday].”

Here’s guessing Shildt goes with what got him here:

The Dodgers can have their lanes. The Padres have enough confidence in their own hitters to throw those lanes out of whack.

As for the matchups, Merrill says he knows he’s going to face Dodgers lefties Anthony Banda and Alex Vesia. He’s fine with that. Merrill said he’d rather face those lefties than see a major shakeup before the biggest game of the season.

“Nah,” Merrill said at the mere suggestion of a lineup change. “We’re good.”