SAN DIEGO — Behind a 6-5 victory, the San Diego Padres are a win away from ending the Los Angeles Dodgers’ season again, and they’ll get a chance on Wednesday to do it at home, which just might be the most raucous ballpark of the postseason.
Mookie Betts broke out of his slump, hitting a hanging narrative into the left-field stands for a first-inning home run, which put the Padres in an early 1-0 hole. They stormed back with the help of some unfortunate Dodgers defense in the bottom of the second, including two would-be double plays that weren’t.
It started with Manny Machado veering out of the baseline to take Freddie Freeman’s throw on the helmet, sending the ball into left field, and it continued when Miguel Rojas tried to start a double play on his own, only to be late on both ends. David Peralta roped a two-run double down the line to give the Padres the lead, and Fernando Tatis Jr. hit one of the more regrettable 0-2 fastballs you’ll ever see for a long, long home run.
(Machado’s play was legal, by the way. Rule 5.09(b)(4) references intentionally interfering with a thrown ball, but that requires that the runner knows where the ball actually is.)
What should have been a calm, easy win got wacky when the Dodgers came within a run in the very next inning. Three singles and a Teoscar Hernández grand slam made the score 6-5 and brought his team back from the shadow realm. All they needed was just one run.
Mookie Betts and Manny Machado were back in the heart of the action in Game 3. (Harry How / Getty Images)
Starter Michael King settled down, and the vaunted Padres bullpen — built for precisely this kind of game in the postseason — completely shut the Dodgers down, allowing just a single with two outs in the eighth inning.
Game 4 is scheduled for Wednesday at 9:08 p.m. ET.
Manny Machado’s heads-up base running facilitates a monster inning
The Padres trailed 1-0 after Jurickson Profar did not rob Mookie Betts of a home run. Manny Machado led off the bottom of the second with a well-struck single. Four pitches later, Jackson Merrill sent a grounder to Dodgers first baseman Freddie Freeman, who fielded the ball and, from his knees, threw toward second base attempting to nab Machado, the lead base runner.
Machado had other plans. As he took off from first, he veered onto the lip of the infield grass and into Freeman’s throwing lane. The ball glanced off the back of Machado’s helmet and rolled into left field. A moment later, both Machado and Merrill were safe. The Padres had Machado’s awareness to thank: Unless a base runner who has passed first is trying to avoid a tag, he does not have to stay in his so-called running lane.
A contact-heavy Padres offense proceeded to capitalize in familiar fashion. Xander Bogaerts reached on a fielder’s choice as Machado scored the tying run. There still were no outs when David Peralta ripped a two-run double. Jake Cronenworth produced an infield single for his first hit of the postseason. Kyle Higashioka lifted a sacrifice fly to center field. Finally, two batters later, Fernando Tatis Jr. crushed his third home run of the series.
It all added up to a monster six-run inning, and it started with what was quite literally a heads-up play.
Mookie Betts finally gets going
Betts, who opened this series hitless in six at-bats (and hitless in his past 22 playoff at-bats dating back to the 2022 NLDS against these same Padres), had looked as though he had halted his skid two nights ago. In Game 2, he connected on a breaking ball from Padres starter Yu Darvish in the first inning and hit it into the left-field corner at Dodger Stadium. He began to celebrate rounding the bases before Jurickson Profar showed him such glee was unfounded — he’d reached over the short fence into the stands and, after a notable pause, revealed he had caught the baseball.
That colored Betts’ premature dejection on Tuesday night when Betts again stepped up to the plate in the first inning and barreled up a Michael King breaking ball, sending it toward Profar in left field where the Padres outfielder again reached into the stands.
It was only after Betts had turned back toward the Dodgers dugout — and third-base coach Dino Ebel screamed at him to keep rounding the bases – that Betts noticed that the ball kicked off Profar’s glove and into the stands for a leadoff home run.
Betts would collect another hit his next at-bat, setting up Teoscar Hernández’s grand slam that got them back into the game.
Michael King falters but recovers to get the job done
With the count full in the top of the first, Michael King threw Betts a sweeper. It was understandable. In the regular season, Betts hit .121 and slugged .242 against sweepers; virtually no other pitch, with the small-sample exception of Matt Waldron’s knuckleball, gave him as much trouble. And, regardless of pitch type, Betts had not gotten a postseason hit in two years.
Still, this particular pitch arrived higher than King would’ve liked. Betts hit it out to give the Dodgers an early lead.
Two innings later, after three consecutive singles loaded the bases, King again paid for an elevated sweeper. Hernández muscled it over the center-field wall, abruptly cutting the Padres’ lead to one. The latest record-setting Petco Park crowd, which had gone ballistic throughout the bottom of the second, dropped a few dozen decibels in volume.
The home fans, however, would reapproach their previous level. King recovered to retire each of the final eight batters he faced. A shutdown Padres bullpen took over in the top of the sixth, and it immediately felt like a wise decision; Jeremiah Estrada struck out Hernández looking.
In the end, King wound up the winner. He did not resemble the ace he was in last week’s Wild Card Series opener against Atlanta, but he showed enough mettle that the Padres can continue to feel good about their prized right-hander.
(Photo of Fernando Tatis Jr.: Daniel Shirey / Getty Images)
