Nail-biters have become the norm for evenly matched Dodgers and Padres
The Dodgers and San Diego Padres have played 39 innings of riveting baseball this season and have been separated by two runs or fewer in 36 of those innings.
The National League West rivals have been within one run of each other in the eighth inning of all four games they’ve played, the three-game series in San Diego last weekend and Thursday night’s opener of a four-game set in chilly Chavez Ravine, where the Padres held on for another nail-biter of a 3-2 victory.
“We’re pretty evenly matched,” Dodgers manager Dave Roberts said. “Every one of these games could have gone either way.”
The teams played 12 innings last Friday in Petco Park, the Dodgers busting out with five 12th-inning runs for an 11-6 win after both teams escaped harrowing jams in the 10th and 11th innings.
Dodgers left-hander Clayton Kershaw outdueled Padres right-hander Yu Darvish in Saturday’s 2-0 thriller, which ended with Dodgers center fielder Mookie Betts making a spectacular diving catch of Tommy Pham’s sinking line drive to the right-center field gap with runners on second and third.
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Sunday’s game was tied 2-2 in the eighth before San Diego rallied for three runs and a 5-2 win. Dodgers utility man Chris Taylor best captured the energy and intensity of the head-to-head battle when he said, “It felt like a playoff series.”
Little seems to separate these powerhouse clubs, and never was that more apparent than in the eighth inning Thursday night, when mere inches on a few bouncing balls and a split-second play at first base gave the Padres the razor-thin edge they needed to — of course — even the season series at two games apiece.
The Dodgers were trailing 3-2 when Justin Turner led off the eighth with a single to left field off Padres reliever Nabil Crismatt. With a 2-and-2 count on Will Smith, Crismatt lobbed a 67.5-mph curve that was far inside but looked like it might catch part of the plate.
Smith took an awkward, defensive, golf-like swing — it looked like he was trying to foul the ball off to keep the at-bat alive — and lofted a high fly down the left-field line. Left fielder Jurickson Profar, after a long run, skidded across the dirt warning track as he attempted a diving catch, but the ball bounced into the seats.
Third-base umpire Jim Reynolds initially ruled foul ball, but replays showed the ball hit the chalk line. The call was overturned and Smith was awarded a ground-rule double, putting runners on second and third with no outs.
Left-hander Tim Hill replaced Crismatt and, with the infield in, got Max Muncy to ground out to second, the runners holding. Hill fell behind AJ Pollock with two balls before intentionally walking him to load the bases.
Up stepped Sheldon Neuse, who in his previous at-bat had hit his first big-league homer, a towering shot to left-center that tied the score 2-2. The utility man rifled a 105-mph one-hop shot to the left of second baseman Jake Cronenworth, a ball that Roberts thought “could have blown the game open a bit.”
But Cronenworth, who finished second in NL rookie-of-the-year voting in 2020, got just enough of the heel of his glove on the ball to knock it down, the ball squirting behind him a bit.
For Saturday’s game against the Padres, the Dodgers are opening what they’re calling a ‘fully vaccinated fan section,’ where social distancing won’t be required.
“I knew I had knocked it down somewhere within my space,” Cronenworth said. “I was trying to find it as quick as possible. I knew [shortstop Fernando Tatis Jr.] was behind me. Just tried to give it to him as quick as possible.”
Cronenworth rolled to his left, scooped the ball up with his bare hand and, from one knee, made a quick but wide underhand to Tatis. The dynamic shortstop reached back and to his left for the ball, set his feet as he avoided a sliding Pollock and fired a bullet to first in time to beat Neuse for an inning-ending double play.
“He was in a perfect position,” Cronenworth said of Tatis. “I don’t know how hard the throw was, but if I had to guess, probably 95 mph. And then a super good stretch out of [Eric Hosmer] at first base to get those last couple of inches.”
When he heard the crack of the bat, Roberts was sure Neuse had smoked a go-ahead — or, at the very least, a score-tying hit.
“That was our thought,” he said. “But Cronenworth is a heck of a ballplayer. For him to recover on that ball and make a nice feed … and I just don’t know many shortstops who can make that turn with the arm strength, so it was a heck of a play to end that inning.”
Inside the Padres clubhouse, 21-year-old left-hander Ryan Weathers was icing his arm after going toe-to-toe with Dodgers ace Walker Buehler by allowing one hit over 5 2/3 scoreless innings, striking out six and walking one.
Weathers, the son of former big-league reliever David Weathers, made his major league debut against the Dodgers in the playoffs last October, and he has now thrown 10 scoreless innings, giving up two hits and striking out 10, in three games against the defending World Series champions.
The Dodgers might have taken two of three games in their series with the Padres, but it’s clear they can ill afford to take San Diego lightly.
“We all screamed in the clubhouse,” Weathers said. “I wish I had been out there for it.”
A crowd of 15,167 went silent after the play. Padres closer Mark Melancon struck out the side in the bottom of the ninth for the save, but the right-hander would not have had a save opportunity if not for Cronenworth, the 27-year-old who is clearly gaining a foothold in the big leagues.
Already this this season against the Dodgers, Cronenworth has hit a homer off Trevor Bauer, struck out Betts when he took the mound at the end of the 12-inning game and snuffed out a potential rally with Thursday night’s web gem.
“He’s grown on me,” Roberts said. “I appreciate good ballplayers who play the game the right way, and he’s creeping into that top tier of players I really enjoy watching.”
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