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SAN DIEGO — It felt appropriate when Blink 182’s Tom DeLonge roamed the stands in a live performance in the eighth inning Tuesday night and invited a record crowd of 47,744 raucous fans at Petco Park to join along in singing his song, which has turned into a celebratory anthem at 19 Tony Gwynn Dr.
The Dodgers had one big blast, but the Padres did all the small things.
They poured on when given extra chances, matched up perfectly in the bullpen with Game 3 of the National League Division Series in the balance and, most importantly, played the crisp defense their counterparts did not in a 6-5 win that once again put San Diego on the precipice of sending its division-winning rivals home early in the postseason.
But for all the parallels to 2022, all the feelings of euphoric déjà vu in the Gaslamp District, this year feels different. If the Padres finish the job at home Wednesday, it won’t stun anyone the way it did two years ago when their 89-win team bested the 111-win juggernaut Dodgers.
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This time, the Padres aren’t sneaking up on anyone.
This time, they’re an unrelenting unit with few, if any, glaring weaknesses.
This time, they just might be the best team in the entire playoff field.
“As well as we’re playing,” Fernando Tatís Jr. said, “I see us playing even better.”
The Padres’ star right fielder was already having one of the best starts to a postseason ever — his 2.151 OPS through four playoff games entering Tuesday was the highest of any player ever with at least 18 plate appearances — when he delivered a stadium-shaking, backbreaking two-run blast that sent Petco Park into a frenzy and turned a snowballing second inning for Walker Buehler and the Dodgers into a full-on calamity.
The box score for Buehler looked ugly: five innings, seven hits, six runs (all earned), one walk, no strikeouts. But neither his final line nor his fiery walk off the field after the disaster frame, which ended with him throwing his glove and various items in the Dodgers’ dugout, painted the full picture of his outing.
All six San Diego runs Tuesday night came home in a barrage that could have been avoided entirely had Buehler’s defense backed him up.
This is the danger of a banged-up infield against an inexorable contact-heavy offense. The Padres tallied the fewest strikeouts and the most hits in the sport and had 10 walk-off wins this year. They will put the ball in play. And on Tuesday, they made the hobbled Dodgers pay.
“When you give a good team extra outs, it’s hard to throw up zeroes,” manager Dave Roberts said.
With Manny Machado on first, Jackson Merrill pulled a grounder that forced Freddie Freeman, who’s gutting through a badly sprained ankle, to dive to his right. Freeman’s throw from his knees to second base ricocheted off Machado, whose circuitous route cut off a clear lane, and into left field.
The more lethal miscue, however, came one batter later when Xander Bogaerts hit another potential double-play ball. Shortstop Miguel Rojas, whose adductor strain ultimately forced him out of the game before night’s end, decided to run to the bag himself to try to turn two instead of flipping to second. Both runners were safe, and the Dodgers’ auspicious first-inning lead — something the starting pitching-deprived club hadn’t had in a postseason game since Game 1 of the 2022 NLDS — was gone.
David Peralta, a former Dodger and unsung hero of the Padres’ two wins in the series, followed by pulling a fastball in and off the plate down the line for a two-run double. Jake Cronenworth deposited an infield single. At the time, only two balls had left the infield and the Padres had already plated three runs.
Buehler would rebound with a sac fly and a popout when he made his only obvious mistake pitch of the catastrophic inning, leaving an 0-2 fastball in the nitro zone of the postseason’s hottest hitter. Tatís, who’s 10-for-18 with four homers this October, did not miss.
“Man, when I hit it, I don’t know, I just blacked out, started screaming at my dugout, just energy through the roof,” Tatís said.
The past two games showcased the various ways this iteration of the Padres can win games and cause matchup woes.
Even without Joe Musgrove, they possess starting pitchers capable of spinning gems, as Yu Darvish did with seven innings of one-run ball in Game 2. The off-field antics from Sunday night at Dodger Stadium raised the temperature level of the series but also took the attention off the actual results of the contest, which was an absolute bludgeoning by a Padres offense that became the first team in MLB history to launch six homers in a road playoff game.
They can win by mashing, but they can also ravage the will of an opponent by putting ball after ball after ball in play, the way they did while batting around in Tuesday’s six-run onslaught. It’s a contact-heavy lineup equipped to cause havoc, even when the three-time batting champ at the top isn’t producing.
“You see it every night, it’s somebody different that gets the big hit or makes the big defensive play or makes the big pitching spot when we needed it,” Jake Cronenworth said. “Whatever it is, I think that’s what makes this group so special. It’s not just one or two people that are carrying us, it’s a collective group. Everybody leans on each other.”
And when that offense provides a lead in the middle innings, there might not be a more formidable bullpen in the sport.
After general manager AJ Preller made aggressive moves to acquire relievers Tanner Scott, Jason Adam and Bryan Hoeing at the deadline, Padres relievers ranked in the top five in the majors in ERA, strikeout rate and strikeout-to-walk ratio the rest of the year. They played a significant role in the late-season success of a Padres team that had the best record in baseball after the break.
Now, pared down to the top high-leverage threats, the bullpen’s even scarier.
On the rare occasions when the starting pitcher falters, as Michael King did in Game 2, allowing a Teoscar Hernández grand slam that cut a five-run lead down to one, that group behind him is a steadying presence. Jeremiah Estrada, Adam, Scott and closer Robert Suárez backed up King by combining to allow just one baserunner the rest of the way.
“This is a family here,” said Estrada, who, in a career year, sacrificed his eighth-inning role for lower leverage opportunities to accommodate the deadline additions. “I was just like, ‘Look, you guys have given me the opportunity. That’s all I wanted, just an opportunity to show you guys who I can be. I’m going to give you my best. These guys come in, that’s more help. New brothers coming along.”
When Suárez is right — after a shaky end to the season, the Padres stuck with him in the ninth-inning role, and he has rewarded them with 3.1 scoreless frames this postseason — the bullpen is a full-fledged force. But the Padres won’t need their relievers quite the same way the Dodgers will in a do-or-die Game 4, with the teetering club one loss away from a third straight first-round exit at the hands of a lower-seeded division foe.
For the Dodgers, Tuesday’s defeat did include some silver linings.
Mookie Betts, who was hitless in his previous 22 postseason at-bats entering the night, homered in the opening frame on a nearly identical deep drive to the one Jurickson Profar robbed from him the game prior. After rounding first, Betts was near the pitcher’s mound on his way back to the dugout assuming it had been caught before returning to the basepath and continuing his trot. Luck hadn’t been on his side lately, but maybe it’s turning after a two-hit night. Getting Betts going will be crucial to the Dodgers’ survival.
After the blow-up inning, Buehler bounced back to hold the Padres scoreless the next three frames. In the fifth inning, Roberts made a mound visit after a single from Machado but let Buehler continue. After a wild pitch to Jackson Merrill moved Machado to second, the Dodgers intentionally walked the star rookie on a 1-1 count. Leaving Buehler in, and providing the free pass, paid off, as Buehler escaped the inning unscathed.
That was one less out needed from a Dodgers reliever, with a bullpen game on tap to keep their season alive and avoid being on the wrong side of another rollicking celebration at Petco Park. The Padres plan to start ace Dylan Cease, who threw just 82 pitches while going 3.1 innings in Game 1 on Saturday, on short rest.
“Not a great situation,” Roberts said. “But as far as winning a ball game tomorrow, I think we’re in a really good spot.”
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