Let’s begin with a reality check.

Compared with the Padres and almost every other team, the Dodgers boast far more star talent. The two-time defending World Series champs hold sizable advantages in quality depth and baseball wisdom, too.

It’s “wild card or bust” every season for the Padres, who have no shot to win the 162-game National League West race.

Practically speaking, then, it’s losses to wild-card rivals this summer that will harm the Padres more than the 4-2 home-field loss Sunday to L.A. that decided a three-game series. Unless a meteor strikes, the Dodgers are headed toward another West title and probably a first-round playoff bye.

Beating L.A. does bring on an endorphin rush, for both Padres players and the team’s fans.

It often takes the Padres making the most of what few relative strengths they have.

They didn’t do that Sunday.

The Reaper never came calling for the Dodgers because L.A. took a 4-1 lead in the fifth inning with three runs and Padres hitters chased too many pitches for strike three.

Mason Miller, the Padres’ uber-closer, didn’t leave the bullpen until Dodgers shortstop Mookie Betts, in a replica of the World Series-Game 7 clincher at Toronto last fall, turned Fernando Tatis Jr.’s grounder into a game-ending double play.

Although the Dodgers had success against Miller last month, pestering him into a throwing error that led to a victory, they understood that he represents the Padres’ largest personnel advantage over them.

“We know who’s in the back of the bullpen,” said Freddie Freeman, the team’s No. 3 hitter.

“With him at the back end,” Dodgers manager Dave Roberts said, “you’re trying to essentially manage for six or seven innings to try to catch a lead, to keep him out of the game. That’s certainly front of mind for me.”

The Dodgers took a pivotal five-inning matchup between Padres ace Michael King and their No. 5 starter, Emmet Sheehan.

Getting four RBIs from their three former National League MVPs, the Dodgers scored four runs off King despite putting only one hard-hit ball into play.

The Padres’ only run against a much-improved Sheehan, who had some line-drive luck, came on Manny Machado’s 15th home run.

By not challenging a borderline full-count ball to Freeman that broke a 1-1 tie in the fifth, the Padres made a large mental error.

King and catcher Rodolfo Durán, a rookie making his 22nd start, said they should’ve challenged the one-out ball call.

They might’ve won, keeping the score tied.

“It would have been nice to get that one,” manager Craig Stammen said.

Durán had a tough read of the pitch, a changeup, because he had to reach across his body to catch it near the inside corner.

A catcher’s attempt to gauge that type of pitch for ball-strike challenge can amount to guessing, said Dodgers catcher Chuckie Robinson. “When you are behind the baseball,” rather than moving sideways, “you’ve got a better view of it,” he said.

Freeman expressed surprise that the pitch could’ve been ruled a strike.

“Maybe it makes up for the strikeout,” he said, referring to an incorrect third strike on him earlier in the game.

Surviving quality work by King in the nine-pitch duel, Freeman fouled off three different types of full-count pitches.

The Dodgers did other Dodgers things, too, on a day when King would’ve handled most lineups.

Shohei Ohtani went off the plate to poke an opposite-field, run-scoring single for a 1-0 lead.

When King threw his only fat one out of his 90 pitches, Betts lined it for a two-run single.

Reprising a season theme, Padres relievers did their jobs very well. Not many other Padres did the same.

Now it’s on to Wrigley Field for three games against the Cubs, a wild-card rival.