San Diego Padres, Los Angeles Dodgers set stage for memorable summer

LOS ANGELES — It seemed as if Sunday’s finale, the seventh game in 10 days between the San Diego Padres and the Los Angeles Dodgers, would finally produce the first dud of this exhilarating matchup. The Dodgers led by six runs, and the Padres were down to their last nine outs, entering the final three innings of a grueling stretch that consisted of 17 games in 17 days.

But of course, the Padres chipped away at the deficit.

Of course, they made it interesting in the ninth.

And of course, they sent it into extra innings.

The Padres ultimately won, riding a game-tying single from Manny Machado and a game-winning sacrifice fly from Eric Hosmer. San Diego wound up taking four of the seven games from the Dodgers and outscored them by the slimmest of margins, 32-30. All told, the teams played 68 innings and were separated by two runs or fewer in 61 of them. There were 10 ties, five lead changes, two near brawls and one Twitter fight.

“Man, I’m drained,” Padres shortstop Fernando Tatis Jr. told the ESPN broadcast moments after recording the final out. “All I wanna do is go home and go to sleep.”

Sunday’s outing actually provided the perfect bookend. The opener — back on April 16, which now feels like three months ago — lasted 12 innings and 297 minutes. The finale lasted 11 innings and 299 minutes. The opener saw Dodgers pitcher David Price hit a sacrifice fly off Padres second baseman Jake Cronenworth, which was caught by Padres pitcher Joe Musgrove. The finale saw two starting pitchers, Ryan Weathers of the Padres and Clayton Kershaw of the Dodgers, come to bat with the winning run 90 feet away in the 10th inning.

One inning later, Mark Melancon took the mound as the 41st and final player to appear in Sunday’s game.

The Dodgers are the reigning World Series champs, winners of eight consecutive division titles. They entered this four-game series with the best record in the majors and ended it with the best record in the majors. They don’t have anything to prove at this point. The Padres still do. And they did.

“I think we certainly made a statement,” Hosmer said. “The whole baseball world was watching these games, locked into our series, and I think they know that we can compete with these guys.”

The Padres and Dodgers will play at least 12 more times this season, but the next meeting won’t come until June 21. Until then, here are seven takeaways from their seven tantalizing April games:

An epic comeback

It was only fitting that this improbable series would feature an improbable ending. When Chris Taylor belted a three-run homer in the sixth inning on Sunday, pushing the lead to 7-1, a Dodgers victory seemed like a foregone conclusion. The Padres were 1-112 all time in games in which they trailed the Dodgers by six or more runs. Over the past 50 seasons, teams trailing by six in the seventh inning or later had a .007 winning percentage. This year alone, teams were 0-49 in that situation.

The Dodgers had won 228 consecutive games in which they held a six-run lead.

The Padres, major league leaders in come-from-behind victories during the shortened 2020 season, fittingly were the ones to end that streak. They picked up two in the seventh, another two in the eighth and yet another two in the ninth, before finishing off the Dodgers two innings later.

“We just had a belief that they can’t close us out, they can’t close us out,” Padres manager Jayce Tingler said.

Dodgers manager Dave Roberts was clearly peeved at his bullpen’s performance, even though three of his high-leverage relievers were out of action.

He was asked if he learned anything new about the Padres over the course of these seven games.

“Not a whole lot,” Roberts said. “We knew they could pitch; we knew they’re athletic. They play good defense. They made some big plays defensively, they got some big hits when they needed to, so, yeah, it’s kind of what we knew. It’s just more about us and how we play baseball. When we play clean baseball, we pitch well, then we win.”

Tatis is back (on one side, at least)

On Friday, Tatis homered twice off Kershaw, on the 22nd anniversary of his father belting two grand slams in one inning at Dodger Stadium. On Saturday, Tatis homered twice again — this time off Trevor Bauer — to become the first player ever with back-to-back two-homer games against Cy Young Award winners. On Sunday, he homered yet again. With that, he became the first shortstop to homer in three straight games at Dodger Stadium and the first player with five home runs and two stolen bases in a road series, no matter the venue.

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Fernando Tatis Jr. takes Dustin May deep to center field for a 408-foot homer.

“I truly believe he’s the best talent in baseball,” Hosmer said. “He’s the face of baseball, and he showed why. Especially seeing him how he started, him having no panic in his game whatsoever. As a young player, when you start out a little slow and not the way you want to start out, it’s so easy to panic, to try to do more. Coming into a huge…