Intensity increases as Padres even NLDS with decisive victory over Dodgers
LOS ANGELES — Once upon a time, the Dodgers did not consider the San Diego Padres their rivals.
Those days are gone.
In a game featuring taunting and trolling by Padres outfielders Jurickson Profar and Fernando Tatis Jr. and unruly behavior by the Dodgers’ fans surrounding them in the pavilion seats, the Padres upped the intensity of this National League Division Series, hit a postseason record-tying six home runs and evened the series with a resounding 10-2 victory over the Dodgers in Game 2 Sunday night.
The Padres are the first team to hit six home runs in a postseason game as the road team.
The best-of-five series will take a breath Monday before resuming at Petco Park on Tuesday night – where decorum will likely be breached once again.
“Look, the first thing is it’s unacceptable to be throwing stuff on the field. That’s the first thing. That’s really all there is to say about it,” Dodgers infielder Max Muncy said. “There was other stuff involved but you just can’t throw stuff on the field like that. It’s frustrating. We understand fans are frustrated with us and this game. But you just can’t be throwing stuff on the field.”
The “other stuff” that Muncy alluded to was Dodgers starter Jack Flaherty hitting Tatis with a pitch in the sixth inning, chirping between Profar and Dodgers catcher Will Smith (who called Profar “irrelevant” earlier this season) and Padres third baseman Manny Machado and the Dodgers dugout.
“They didn’t like the pitch to Tatis,” Flaherty said. “Look, I missed in the first inning and I threw the ball over the middle (on Tatis’ first homer). I wasn’t going to miss over the plate again. I have no reason to hit a guy there to start off the sixth. … I’m going in for effect and he didn’t get out of the way and it hit him.
“I was fired up after getting Manny out (in the first inning). It’s a big spot in the playoffs. That’s what happens. I was fired up. Oh well. And then, he did some (stuff) between innings where he tries to throw the ball in our dugout. Everybody catches the tail end of it, of me and him going at it, but I was sitting there for my team. I wasn’t going to go at him. He was throwing at our dugout. … I understand it’s the postseason, everybody’s fired up.”
The intensity bubbled over as the Dodgers were set to bat in the bottom of the seventh inning. A ball was thrown from the left field pavilion at Profar – who had been taunting fans since stealing a home run from Mookie Betts in the first inning. He reacted angrily and the umpiring crew gathered in shallow left field where Padres manager Mike Shildt gestured at the fans.
“A hostile environment,” Shildt said. “What I got out of it was a bunch of dudes that showed up in front of a big, hostile crowd with stuff being thrown at them and said, ‘We’re going to talk with our play. We’re not going to back down. We’re going to elevate our game. We’re going to be together and we’re going to take care of business.”
When the Padres tried to return to their positions, debris was tossed onto the field from the right field pavilion with Tatis making gestures at the fans that looked like he was telling them to wipe away their tears.
“It’s a show. It’s MLB: The Show,” Tatis said on the field immediately after the game. “We were giving them a show.”
In all, the start of the inning was delayed by about 12 minutes. The Padres clearly relished their heel turn – they put the game away with back-to-back home runs in the eighth inning and scored three more in the ninth (featuring Tatis’ second home run of the game).
“Dodger fans, they were just not happy,” Tatis said. “They’re losing the game, obviously, and just a lot of back and forth. What can I say? I wish they could control it a little bit more their emotions. But at the end of the day I see this as part of a game.”
No one was more in control than Padres starting pitcher Yu Darvish, who trapped Dodgers hitters in the spin zone all night.
Darvish dipped into seven different categories on the Statcast pitch chart while holding the Dodgers’ offense to just three hits and two walks over seven innings.
Darvish’s kitchen sink included 17 sweepers, 16 sliders, 15 curveballs, 12 splitters, six sinkers, five cutters and only 11 four-seam fastballs. He held Dodgers star Shohei Ohtani – who called Darvish his “childhood hero” – hitless in three at-bats.
“We were (expletive),” Muncy said of the Dodgers’ lack of offense against Darvish.
“Flush it. Move on. Like I said, we were (expletive) tonight. That’s not us as a group. We’ve been good all year.”
Ohtani and Darvish are friends off the field. But Darvish’s best friends Sunday were his outfielders.
In the first inning, Betts drilled a first-pitch sweeper from Darvish down the line in left field and went into his home run trot. The stadium sound system kicked in the home run fanfare.
But Profar reached into the stands, took the ball away from the fans there and a home run away from Betts. Profar taunted the fans as he strutted away with the ball in his glove – a sign of the trolling yet to come.
Betts was hitless in the game and is now 0 for his past 22 in the postseason.
“They’re all outs. So they’re all terrible,” Betts said when asked about the quality of his at-bats. “I don’t know really what to say about it. I’m giving my best, doing my best. Obviously it’s not good enough right now.
“It’s really frustrating. But nothing I can really do right now but keep going and hope it turns.”
In the fourth inning, Freddie Freeman got one of Darvish’s four-seamers and lined it hard into right field over the head of Tatis – who reached up on the run and grabbed it, robbing Freeman of a leadoff extra-base hit. Like Profar, Tatis taunted the fans, dancing to the boos that rained down on him from the right field pavilion.
Just an inning later, Freeman left the game with renewed discomfort in his injured right ankle. Dodgers manager Dave Roberts said Freeman would be re-evaluated before Game 3.
“He was down, really down and just couldn’t keep going,” Roberts said. “We had no other choice. He’s doing everything he can. I don’t know what his status will be like for Game 3. But for tonight we had no other option.”
Center fielder Jackson Merrill joined the outfield highlight reel in the sixth inning when he went back to the wall to haul in Kiké Hernandez’s long fly ball.
The Dodgers had Darvish’s own back to the wall in the second inning but let him off the hook. They loaded the bases with no outs. Gavin Lux drove in one run with a sacrifice fly but Tommy Edman lined a ball directly at first baseman Luis Arraez, who then doubled Smith off first to end the inning.
While Darvish was outstanding for the Padres, Flaherty gave the Dodgers their best postseason start in years – a seriously low bar.
Flaherty gave up a solo home run to Tatis in the first inning and a two-run home run to David Peralta in the second. While playing with an elbow injury that he wasn’t completely honest with the Dodgers about last season, Peralta didn’t hit a home run after July 8.
But Flaherty did pitch into the sixth inning – the longest postseason start by a Dodgers pitcher since Max Scherzer went seven innings in Game 3 of the 2021 NLDS against the San Francisco Giants.