SAN FRANCISCO — San Francisco Giants center fielder Jung Hoo Lee might have made the catch of the year — at least.

Tampa Bay’s Yandy Díaz drove a pitch to deep right-center, known as Triples Alley at Oracle Park, and Lee made a play that created a buzz Sunday on social media as San Francisco beat the Rays 7-1.

Lee ran to his left and while sliding on his left leg, the baseball bounced out of his glove. The ball deflected to his his left thigh and rolled down to his left calf before it popped up and he pinned it between his knees and snagged it with his glove.

The speedy, 26-year-old South Korean has become a fan favorite in San Francisco since signing a sixth-year deal worth $113 million before the 2024 season.

He’s about to be even more popular.

Lee has been perhaps the best player on the middle-of-the-pack Giants this season, playing regularly after his rookie season was shortened to 26 games because of injury. He has bounced back from season-ending surgery on his dislocated left shoulder after being injured crashing into an outfield wall.

LOS ANGELES — Alex Vesia made his 58th appearance of the season in Sunday’s eighth inning, retired the two batters he faced, then walked into the dugout and delivered a message to Los Angeles Dodgers manager Dave Roberts.

“If we’re up in the ninth,” Vesia recalled saying, “I want it.”

Vesia had been relied upon heavily in 2025, but a sweep against the San Diego Padres — the team that shockingly pulled ahead in the division earlier this week — was in play. The top of the lineup was due up, the bullpen was shorthanded, and so Vesia wanted the ball again. Roberts, who had already burned through all of his available high-leverage relievers, responded affirmatively.

“You got it,” he said.

Three pitches later, Mookie Betts delivered a tiebreaking home run, paving the way for Vesia to quickly retire the side and seal a 5-4, sweep-clinching victory at Dodger Stadium. The Dodgers held a nine-game lead in the National League West as recently as July 3, then went 12-21 over a six-week stretch and approached this highly anticipated weekend series trailing the Padres by a game. The skid might end up being the best thing to happen to them.

“It was the first time we’d seen ourselves down,” Dodgers outfielder Andy Pages said in Spanish, his team now up two in the division and set to play the last-place Colorado Rockies over the next four days. “I think we told ourselves, ‘That’s not where we should be.’ That’s what helped push us forward.”

Clayton Kershaw, Blake Snell and Tyler Glasnow combined to give up only three runs in 17 innings in their three starts against the Padres, but the contributions from some of those who had been struggling were just as important.

Teoscar Hernandez, who began this series with a .287 on-base percentage, homered in each of the first two games. Michael Conforto, with a batting average below .200 for most of his first year with the Dodgers, tallied three hits in eight at-bats over the weekend. Betts, navigating the worst offensive season of his career, drove in the winning run in the finale, ending an 0-for-8 stretch in this series. But it was the bullpen — one that blew two leads while the Dodgers suffered a sweep at Angel Stadium earlier this week and is down as many as six high-leverage relievers at the moment — that really shined.

Seven Dodgers relievers combined to give up three runs in 10 innings over the three games.

“It’s the dawg, right?” Vesia said. “We still have that. That doesn’t just go away. Every single one of us, we’re leaning on each other. And we know as a group how good we are. The last three games, it’s shown, and that’s from one guy picking up the next. We kind of call it passing the torch. You get kicked down in this game from time to time, right? We put our heads down and keep going.”

The Padres were swept in a series for the first time since May 20-22, against the Toronto Blue Jays. The Dodgers, who snuck past the Padres in last year’s NL Division Series while on their way to the championship, won three in a row for the first time since the beginning of July and moved to 8-2 against the Padres this season. The teams will stage their final matchup of the regular season next weekend at Petco Park in San Diego.

“I don’t think anyone in that clubhouse doubted our abilities and how good we can be,” Roberts said. “Honestly, it was just good to play a really good series start to finish. I think we respect those guys, I think they respect us, and now we’ve got to turn the page and move on.”

The Dodgers rode a strong start from Kershaw and a gritty bullpen effort to snatch a close win in Friday’s opener, then took advantage of an erratic Dylan Cease and an overly aggressive Padres running game to take an early five-run lead and cruise to another victory Saturday. On Sunday, the Dodgers pounced on Yu Darvish immediately, getting a three-run homer from Freddie Freeman and a solo home run from Pages to take a 4-0 lead after the first inning.

Darvish and the Padres’ bullpen kept the Dodgers scoreless over the next six innings, and the San Diego offense cut its team’s deficit to one. In the top of the eighth, the Padres manufactured the tying run on a hit by pitch, a double and a groundout. But Betts gave the Dodgers the lead again by turning on a 2-0 fastball from Robert Suarez and sending it 394 feet to left-center field.

Betts’ 2025 season has been a perplexing one. He has overcome perhaps the toughest challenge of his career by successfully transitioning to shortstop in his 30s, but for perhaps the first time in his life, he has also struggled to be an adequate hitter. Betts’ slash line stood at .240/.313/.369 at the start of August. At some point around then, he told himself to forget about the numbers. They were going to be wind up being terrible anyway, so he vowed to approach each at-bat with the mindset of simply helping his team any way he could.

It has been freeing.

“Every at-bat is the same at this point — just trying to do something productive,” Betts said. “It definitely helps to not carry burdens from previous at-bats.”

After Vesia took the ball again in the ninth, he got Fernando Tatis Jr. and Luis Arraez to pop out, then struck out Manny Machado, who went 1-for-12 in the series. The Padres were 14-3 entering their series against the Dodgers, then led in only one of 27 innings over the course of three games.

When they needed it most, the Dodgers displayed the type of dominance they hadn’t shown in a while.

“People who really know this team know that’s still in there,” said Pages, who made a big play of his own by throwing out Freddy Fermin trying to stretch out a double in the third inning. “We’re that type of team. Maybe we went through a rough stretch, but the season’s really long.”

BOSTON — Marlins right fielder Dane Myers felt like a fan at Fenway Park was heckling him beyond what was appropriate, verbal abuse that began before he hit a tying homer in the ninth inning to help Miami rally past the Boston Red Sox on Sunday.

Myers said the heckling began in the eighth when the Red Sox led 3-2 and continued in the ninth after he homered and rookie Jakob Marsee followed with a two-run shot to put the Marlins on top.

“Maybe so,” he said when asked if the fan said something inappropriate. “I don’t really want to get into that. Probably drinking some beers out there, having a good time. It’s a baseball game. I won’t get into necessarily what I heard exactly. It’s part of the game. I think I need to be a pro and probably handle it just a little bit better.”

Myers said he yelled back at the fan in the ninth before security workers intervened. After the fan was removed, Miami wrapped up its 5-3 victory.

“I basically said: ‘Would you be saying this if you were on the field right in my face?'” Myers said. “That was basically the one guy that kind of got the whole section going.”

Myers credited security workers with handling the situation.

“Yeah, they probably had that happen before. They kind of were on it right away,” he said. “Kudos for them kind of stepping in. I wouldn’t ever go into the stands or do anything like that. Just kind of letting them know I’m a person, too. I’m a human, too, so I want some respect as well.”

When asked if the Red Sox approached him and asked what was said — with the possibility of banning the fan for a longer period — he said he wasn’t sure if he would provide details.

“It’s hard to tell. Like I said, they’re fans. They have the right to cheer and to jeer as well. I won’t necessarily … get into what was exactly said,” Myers said.

In the fourth inning, Myers went back on Wilyer Abreu‘s two-run homer and turned like he was going to make an over-the-shoulder grab, but when he crashed into the wall, the ball popped out of his glove and over the fence.

“I don’t know if that ball’s getting over or not, but to kind of have it in my glove then go over and cost two runs kind of hurt,” he said. “I got the chance to make up for it and glad I was able to.”