LOS ANGELES — Is this somehow good for the Dodgers? Being threatened in the final week of the season, for a change, and playing with something at stake against a team that not only is focused on knocking them from their pedestal but has, in the words of Dave Roberts, “had their way against us” in 2024 … will this actually pay dividends when the truly meaningful games begin?
Or maybe the truly meaningful games have already begun. The early returns Tuesday night weren’t promising.
After the Dodgers’ manager talked about expecting intensity from his team, he received … well, not nearly enough, if you measure intensity by taking advantage of your opportunities. The Dodgers went 2 for 10 with runners in scoring position Tuesday night, and their best opportunity of the evening – the ninth inning with no outs, two runners on, one run in and Shohei Ohtani waiting on deck – was snuffed out when the Padres turned Miguel Rojas’ grounder to third into a game-ending triple play, securing San Diego’s 4-2 victory.
A baseball truism: When you don’t score enough runs, you look dead.
So even though the Padres came up empty over the final five innings against the Dodgers’ bullpen, including callup/potential secret weapon Edgardo Henriquez and his 100 mph stuff, they pulled within two games of L.A. in the National League West with Tuesday’s victory, and all of a sudden the possibility of the Dodgers having to play in the best-of-three wild card round was no longer that distant.
During the Dodgers’ run of 11 straight postseasons, 10 of them as division titlists, only two came down to the final week of the season, 2018 and 2021. And there was a school of thought that the Dodgers’ NL Division Series flameouts of the last two seasons, against the Padres in 2022 and Arizona in 2023, came in part because of big leads and no pressure in September and an inability to turn on the intensity switch when the games became meaningful again. (Plus, those extra days off from skipping the wild card round.)
This time they’re already flirting with danger. The Padres’ victory Tuesday night was their eighth in 11 meetings with the Dodgers this season. They’re 41-17 since the All-Star break, the best record in baseball in that span. They’re supremely motivated – little brother usually is, right? – and they play with an edge even under normal circumstances.
And I’m sure a number of players on this roster still remember the night of Game 4 at Petco Park in 2022 when they took down the Dodgers. The two vivid memories of that night: The smile on the face of the late Peter Seidler, the Padres’ controlling owner, as he stepped on the elevator to go to the clubhouse, and a celebration so ear-splitting that the echoes probably still rattle around the Gaslamp Quarter.
These Padres looked spirited, energetic and younger Tuesday night, bolting all over the field to turn apparent hits into outs. They play like they’re on a mission. If they get the Dodgers in a postseason series, this could – no, this will – be a dangerous matchup.
Is this a challenge the Dodgers are prepared to meet? There are way too many variables to predict what might happen, many of them involving starting pitching. But you’d think attention span wouldn’t be as much of an issue as it seemed to be the last two years.
In 2022, the Dodgers finished the regular season 111-51, won the division by 22 games, won 14 of 19 from San Diego during the regular season, yet lost in four. Last season, they were 100-62, won the division by 16 games, won eight of 13 from Arizona during the regular season, and were swept by the Diamondbacks, who rode that momentum to the World Series.
I asked Roberts before Tuesday’s game if this series was a test run for building that edge and that sense of urgency.
“It is,” he said. “Results notwithstanding, I expect us to just come out with some vigor and fight, intensity. When we play these guys, that’s what they bring, and we have to match that intensity.
“I think the talent is similar in both clubhouses, and then it’s kind of, who wants it more.”
Normally, that phrase is one of the hoariest of sports clichés. In this case, with these teams and with the Dodgers’ past history, it fits.
Related Articles
Dodgers lose opener of NL West showdown series with Padres
Dodgers promote minor-league pitcher who hit 104 mph this season
Dodgers’ Joe Kelly sees potential for more fun amid the grind
Dodgers’ Shohei Ohtani named NL Player of the Week after historic surge
Dodgers walk off Rockies on back-to-back homers from Shohei Ohtani, Mookie Betts
“This is kind of a mini-postseason for us,” Rojas said. “We got an opportunity tonight; obviously we didn’t get it done. Gotta come back, win tomorrow and win the next day. I feel like that’s the mentality of everybody in this clubhouse: Try to win that series. It’s obviously going to be important for us going forward in October.”
There is this, if you’re a Dodger fan: The last time they were extended in the regular season, 2021, was also the last time they failed to win the division, losing out to the San Francisco Giants on the last day of the regular season in a race in which both teams were desperate to stay out of what was then the wild card game, with its Game 7 atmosphere at the very start of the postseason.
As you might recall, Chris Taylor was the hero in that game, and the Dodgers went on to beat the Giants in the NLDS and reach Game 6 of the NLCS in Atlanta before faltering in defense of their 2020 World Series title.
Given the brevity of the last two Octobers, that seems so long ago. If the Dodgers have learned anything from those failures, now’s the time to display it.
jalexander@scng.com