Column: Padres keep closing gap on Dodgers as big series roars to life
With a 7-2 win in the series opener against the Dodgers, the Padres continue to make clear they are now contenders and no longer pretenders.
This is what you’ve waited for San Diego, with the patience of saints. This is the salve to soothe the ugliness of eight draining seasons of losing, lethargic baseball.
The Padres are playing meaningful games, in September. They’re playing consequential games this late against the Dodgers. They’re guaranteed to finish a winner for the first time in a decade.
It’s more than that, though.
As Clayton Kershaw and the Dodgers took the field Monday at Petco Park to kick-start a three-game series with intoxicating implications, nothing had changed and everything has changed.
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No one other than the blue bullies have won the NL West since 2013, a model of aggravating, deflating consistency for Padres fans. They’re the apex predator until someone defangs them.
When the Dodgers lock eyes across the diamond now, though, there’s respect instead of maddening derision. The Padres roared into Monday riding a vapor trail — seven straight wins and a baseball-best 20-5 record since Aug. 17 — and trailed the Dodgers by just 2½ games.
This series — which began with a 7-2 Padres win — is about sorting out the division and the playoff dominoes to tumble, but it’s also about the bigger picture of a longtime pretender trying to claw into the realm of legitimate contenders. Monday seemed the ideal launching pad.
“It’s a good way to start the series, for sure,” Padres manager Jayce Tingler said.
As always, doing it is never more capably measured than standing toe to toe with the Dodgers.
The Padres went all in for exactly this kind of moment, leveraging an historically aggressive flurry at the trade deadline to fortify the foundation and deliver a message. The Dodgers seem to be listening.
“They gained ground,” Dodgers manager Dave Roberts said of the upgrades to the rotation, bullpen, catching position and offense. “… Certainly, they closed the gap.”
That’s the on-paper part. The on-field part began in earnest Monday.
Padres starter Dinelson Lamet struck out four of five hitters bridging the first two innings to remind that, along with trade-deadline pickup Mike Clevinger and steady newcomer Zach Davies, the rotation is as formidable as any since the turn of the century — and possibly longer.
Then Kershaw, the 32-year-old veteran, K’d his way through the third inning to offer a reminder of his own after the Dodgers scored a run in the top half with an Austin Barnes walk, Mookie Betts double and Corey Seager’s RBI groundout.
It felt like playoff baseball from the start. Every pitch seemed to matter. Senses seemed heightened, regardless of COVID-19 emptying the stands and much of the Gaslamp Quarter. Lamet was brilliant, piling up 11 strikeouts against just two walks while allowing three hits through seven.
Padres fans endured so much bad baseball for so long that the possibility blossoming in mid-September transfixed.
“This series, I know there’s some hype with it, but it’s just opportunity,” Tingler said. “It’s because we played good baseball and put ourselves in this position.”
That’s the truth of these Padres. They did not luck into this spot. They did not catch breaks by the bushel. They built it pitch by pitch and inning by inning, until the collective resumes of the two teams began to blur.
Spin through the top five hitters in Monday’s lineup. The Dodgers averaged 9.6 home runs per bat, 24.8 RBI with 135 runs scored, a .255 average and a collective .843 OPS. The Padres averaged 10.2 homers, 31.8 RBI with 166 runs, a .304 average and .956 OPS.
No paper tigers, these Padres. Now, it’s time to growl at the NL West’s real tiger.
Success, even in the shortest of sample sizes, has come with perspective the Padres of the past too often lacked. Be excited about facing the Dodgers, without pushing in all your mental and emotional chips.
“With this team, one thing I’ve noticed is that every game seems important,” said catcher Austin Nola, another trade-deadline puzzle piece. “That’s the one thing I noticed since Day 1. It didn’t matter who we were playing.”
But yes, it’s the Dodgers — meaning you find out where you stand.
“Any time you can play meaningful baseball in the regular season, that’s a good thing,” Roberts said. “Look back at the last four years, we haven’t really had to go down to the wire to win the division.”
Late-season drama finally appears to be warming up in the on-deck circle.
When Kershaw cruised into the sixth allowing just two baserunners with eight strikeouts, Petco seemed ripe for the kind of moment this set of Padres have delivered all season.
Trent Grisham redirected a Kershaw fastball into the right-field seats to tie it at 1. When the no-doubter left the bat, Grisham spun to stare down his own dugout and prime competitive juices.
An inning later, the Padres showed they intend to keep the pressure on.
Wil Myers flew to first to beat out an infield single, Jurickson Profar added a one-out single and the Padres gained the lead, 2-1, on Jorge Ona’s bloop double off reliever Pedro Baez. A batter later, pinch hitter Greg Garcia grounded to first baseman Max Muncy, who initially considered firing home after Profar was caught halfway down the line.
Muncy hesitated to tag out Garcia as he raced toward him. Profar made a break for home, Muncy threw to the plate and the runner beat the throw with a great slide to make it 3-1. An error on a Grisham ground ball that followed allowed Ona to come around and make it 4-1.
Soon, it was 5-1. Then 6-1. Then 7-1 on a Wil Myers homer in the eighth. The hits kept coming.
“I don’t think many are surprised or shocked,” Tingler said of player reaction to the rising rivalry. “I think this is where we thought, if we were doing what we were capable of doing and playing how we were capable of playing, I think this is the position that we expected.”
Buckle up.
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