Padres bully Dodgers on wild night in LA with NLDS fan drama

Even before their National League Division Series began, it was clear that there was only one way for the Los Angeles Dodgers to make it out of the playoffs and have a shot at their first full-season World Series title since 1988:

Play Bullyball.

A club that had been dogged by questionable pitching decisions and tragicomic playoff stumbles for a decade entered this tournament without much illusion. Clayton Kershaw was on ice. Tyler Glasnow couldn’t last the entire season. The back end of the rotation was a mystery. Forget “running prevention.” Instead, follow Shohei Ohtani’s example and try to knock down your opponents.

But on Sunday night, when the Dodgers had a chance to take a 2-0 lead against the San Diego Padres, they were crushed in their own backyard.

The Padres literally pranced around all four corners of Dodger Stadium – robbing home runs and deking fans, sputtering as they rounded third in a home run rut, holding a team meeting in the dugout and backing it up with game-winning home runs moments later.

Most importantly, the Padres — and especially venerable starting pitcher Yu Darvish — kept their cool in the face of the hostility.

San Diego ended up with a 10-2 win and a 1-1 NLDS tie. Michael King, probably the best pitcher not named Zack Wheeler still in this NL playoff pool, is waiting for a crucial starting job in Game 3. The mood in this series has taken a 180-degree turnaround since Game 1, when Ohtani, in his second career playoff game, destroyed a baseball for a three-run home run and the Dodgers erased a three-run deficit with a 7-5 win.

Now? The Dodgers, who invested more than $1 billion in payroll last winter, led by $700 million for the great Ohtani, will be happy to leave Petco Park with a vibrant season. Game 3 is Tuesday night in San Diego.

But for a few tense moments before the bottom of the seventh inning, it was an open question whether the Padres would make it out of Dodger Stadium unscathed.

A burgeoning rivalry fueled by three playoff encounters since 2020 was stepped up a notch that night in front of 54,119 enthusiastic fans. They booed heavily when Fernando Tatis Jr., the game’s second batter, hit a pitch from Jack Flaherty into the left field pavilion and then took his stutter step and skipped around third base.

That left field corner then became the focal point of the game at the end of the first half.

No. 2 hitter Mookie Betts ripped a ball into the corner that appeared to be aimed at the seats. Padres left fielder Jurickson Profar scrambled back to the very short wall near the foul pole. He jumped into a sea of fans – well beyond the barriers, meaning the ball was fair game for players, spectators and beer sellers – and stuck his glove into a sea of hopeful fans.

As Profar hopped and stared into the crowd, clearly frustrated, it appeared Betts had tied the game at 1-1.

Surprise!

Profar had the ball in his glove.

A half-inning later, David Peralta hit a two-run home run for a 3-0 lead, and the Padres would never be caught that night. Ohtani wouldn’t reach base.

The firefight didn’t stop: San Diego hit six home runs, two of them in the top of the eighth, shortly after LA villain and Padre hero Manny Machado gathered the team in the dugout and implored them to keep their cool.

And so much happened in between, and much of it wasn’t enough to shower the main cast with fame.

Top of the sixth, still just a 3-1 game: Flaherty drilled Tatis in the leg with a pitch, bringing Profar into the game. Veteran outfielder and Dodgers catcher Will Smith then insulted each other as Profar settled into the box. Few may remember that Smith called Profar “irrelevant” after Profar complained about being hit by a pitch.

Now the dirty laundry has been shown on national television.

Machado shouted from the circle on deck. Profar made a perfect bunt. Flaherty punched Machado and told him to “sit down” in language as blue as his cap.

Only it was Flaherty who also sat down after a mediocre pitching performance, and as he and Machado continued to argue, Flaherty was charged with his fourth earned run after rookie Jackson Merrill ripped off an RBI single from reliever Anthony Banda.

Flaherty later told reporters that the extended back-and-forth with Machado came after the Padres third baseman threw a ball toward the Dodgers’ dugout.

It was 4-1 and it was just fun – if you go by what you consider fun.

Bottom Seven: Profar, perhaps trying to make friends but also attracting a lot more enemies, gives a warm-up ball to a fan in left field. Moments later, that ball was thrown back onto the field, along with another ball thrown slightly closer to Profar’s orbit.

He was rightly saddened. The Padres and manager Mike Shildt gathered in shallow left field. Security was called. A public address warned that objects would be thrown onto the field, which could result in expulsion or other punishment.

And then a hail of beer and trash rained down on the warning track in right field.

“I’ve never seen anything like this,” Dodgers manager Dave Roberts said in a postgame press conference. “Of course there are a lot of emotions and things like that, but that should never happen.”

Profar says: “Yes, I was upset. You can hurt someone. I hope our people in San Diego don’t do that.”

The last loss in Major League Baseball occurred here in 1995, when a “Ball Night” promotion went very badly. This incident wouldn’t sink that low – just an eight-minute delay in which Darvish decided to sit on the mound, stare at the whole thing, and calmly take it all in.

The delay did not stifle him. Darvish pitched seven outstanding innings, yielding just three hits, but needing just 82 pitches to complete nearly three complete trips through the Dodger lineup.

It probably won’t matter, but the chirping and ball-chucking might have galvanized the Padres a little more.

“What I got out of it was a bunch of guys showing up in a big, hostile crowd, throwing things at them and saying, ‘We’re going to talk to our game,'” Padres manager Mike Shildt said. “We will not give in. We will improve our game. We will stick together.”

“And we’ll take care of business.”

Other vital signs are not good for the Dodgers.

Freddie Freeman was forced to leave the game when his sprained ankle flared up again; He’s more or less commonplace as long as the Dodgers survive this October. Flaherty gave up just as many runs – four – as he coaxed swings and misses from the Padres lineup. Walker Buehler will start Game 3 and LA will be the significant underdog to King, who defeated 12 Atlanta Braves in the wild card round.

San Diego is barely more than 100 miles away, but it will be a world apart. The Padres proved their mettle on the road.

Now it’s the Dodgers’ turn to try and play bullies. That’s the only way they can win this series – but only if their bats surpass their noise.

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