Built and rebuilt (and rebuilt again) to compete with “the dragon up the freeway,” San Diego believes its frustration could melt away — it just has to win one series.
LOS ANGELES — They swung for the fences when they signed Manny Machado as a free agent before the 2019 season. But the San Diego Padres were not yet ready to win.
They swung hard again when they traded for Mike Clevinger in the pandemic-shortened 2020 season. Didn’t work.
Undeterred, they took a few more hacks and dealt for top-flight starting pitchers Yu Darvish, Joe Musgrove and Blake Snell all before the 2021 season. No dice.
The Padres have chased, raced, hunted, pursued, hounded, tracked and trailed their would-be rivals to the north for what seems like an eternity. Still, they have not figured out the path around the Los Angeles Dodgers.
Now, they get another chance
Thanks to the taffy pull of baseball’s expanded postseason, the Padres again were allowed an even-steven start with the Dodgers to begin this National League division series. No matter that the Dodgers won 14 of 19 against the Padres this year, outscored them cumulatively, 109-47, and finished 22 games in front of them in the N.L. West.
“Look, we played these guys a lot this year, and they’ve handed to us,” Padres Manager Bob Melvin said before Game 1 here on Tuesday. “So we would like to think it’s our turn as far as winning a series against them.
“It’s 0-0, and after a fantastic season they’ve had, which, give them credit, they played great all year long, we’re back to even. It’s just trying to take advantage, win a series for the first time this year. Maybe some of the series that we played against them before, we took it on the chin. Maybe that motivates you a little more.”
Not long after he uttered those words, the Padres showed they still had the glass chin in a 5-3 Game 1 loss and found themselves in the familiar position of trailing the Dodgers yet again.
At least, the Padres thought, they had Yu Darvish in line to start Game 2 in an effort to even the series on Wednesday night before heading home for Game 3 Friday and the eagerly anticipated first postseason series in front of fans in Petco Park since 2006.
“I feel like we have the utmost confidence in him,” said the slugger Josh Bell, who, along with the superstar Juan Soto, arrived in San Diego at this year’s trading deadline as the Padres dialed up a blockbuster for a fourth consecutive year, sights set squarely on the Dodgers. “The last eight, 10 starts, he’s been absolutely incredible.
“He’s exactly what we need to get going in the right direction.”
Earlier this summer, San Diego’s owner, Peter Seidler, memorably referred to the Dodgers as “the dragon up the freeway that we’re trying to slay.”
Like the Padres, Darvish carries his own set of scars.
He called Dodger Stadium home for half a season after Los Angeles acquired him from Texas at the trade deadline in 2017. He was pretty good over nine starts (4-3, 3.44 E.R.A.) and then in two playoff starts, but he was bludgeoned by the Houston Astros in that year’s World Series. He was the losing pitcher in Game 3 after surrendering four runs and six hits in just one and two-thirds innings in Houston, where trash cans banged during the cheating scandal. Then he failed to make it out of the second inning in a Game 7 loss in Dodger Stadium.
“Obviously, the stadium hasn’t changed,” Darvish, who was 0-2 with a 21.60 E.R.A. in that World Series and was subjected to ugly boos and catcalls by the end of it, said through a translator at Dodger Stadium. “Not much has changed here. But as for myself, I feel like I’m a different pitcher from back then.”
Asked for specifics, Darvish, who was 16-8 with a 3.10 E.R.A. and pitched six or more innings in 23 consecutive starts to finish the season, replied in more general terms.
“I think it comes with age, you know, going through experience for sure,” he said. “You go through that experience in 2017, and there’s a lot to learn from that. That helps you grow to become a better pitcher.”
There was some thought that since the Dodgers hadn’t played in six days after being awarded a bye through the wild-card round, that perhaps they would be a bit rusty. Maybe their timing would be off.
So six pitches into the bottom of the first in Game 1, shortstop Trea Turner creamed a meaty Clevinger fastball, depositing it over the left field fence. Later in the first, Will Smith ripped a double and Max Muncy followed with an R.B.I. single.
There also was the very real possibility that the Padres would have sustainable momentum after dispatching the Mets over the weekend. Instead, the Dodgers scored twice before the Padres even had a hit — then tacked on three more runs in the bottom of the third.
But four Padres relievers combined to throw five and a third scoreless innings, setting down the last 14 Dodgers in a row. And they had the tying run on base in the sixth when Los Angeles second baseman Gavin Lux ranged to his left to make a beautiful play on a Wil Myers smash to start an inning-ending double play.
“Fantastic,” Melvin said of the relief work. “It’s 5-0 and all of a sudden it’s 5-3, and our guys came in and shut it down. We got the tying run to the plate in the ninth inning. No moral victories, but the latter part of the game was better than the first part for us.”
Still, as they keep coming back for more in their own personal game of Dungeons and Dragons, the Padres can’t fight their way out of the dungeon while the dragon keeps breathing more fire.
At some point, it becomes the Harlem Globetrotters and the Washington Generals. One side dazzles and toys with the other. One side’s lot in life is to play the foil.
As the longest-tenured Padre, Myers, acquired from Tampa Bay in a three-way trade before the 2015 season, admits that it seems as if he’s been chasing the Dodgers forever.
“It does,” Myers said. “It definitely feels like that. Obviously, they’ve had a lot of great years and they’ve had a lot of wins against me. But I will say this: If we win this series, none of that will matter. So let’s win this one.”
Both games at Petco Park this weekend are sold out. The Padres feel that if they can send this series back there at 1-1, their victory-starved fans who can’t help but have developed an inferiority complex after watching the Dodgers win nine of the past 10 N.L. West crowns, will be far more raucous than if the Padres return one game from elimination.
After beating the Mets in Citi Field and now playing in Dodger Stadium, the Padres certainly have seen what October life is like on the other side. The sellout crowd of 52,407 in Los Angeles on Tuesday was earsplitting at times. There does not seem to be any complacency here for a team that set a franchise record with 111 wins this season.
“That’s probably the funnest part of the night, to be honest,” Clevinger said of the roaring atmosphere. “The execution wasn’t the fun part of the night.”
It’s been a rough time for Clevinger, who, in four starts against the Dodgers this year, now is 0-3 with a 10.34 E.R.A. And in 2020, five weeks after the Padres acquired him from Cleveland for the stretch run of that pandemic-shortened season, he started Game 1 of a division series against the Dodgers. But, battling a sore arm, he departed after only 26 pitches. The Dodgers swept the Padres in three games and Clevinger wound up having Tommy John surgery that November.
Two years later, as the Padres continue chasing the Dodgers, Clevinger is playing a big role in two playoff series. He came to San Diego in a nine-player deal, and as he started Game 1 on Tuesday, Cleveland was playing in Yankee Stadium with several pieces from that nine-player deal: First baseman Josh Naylor and catcher Austin Hedges were both in the Guardians’ starting lineup while Cal Quantrill was their starting pitcher. Owen Miller pinch-hit, and Gabriel Arias is projected to be Cleveland’s starting shortstop as soon as next year.
In all, the Padres sent three of their top 10 prospects at the time to Cleveland.
And still, they haven’t caught the Dodgers.
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October 12, 2022 at 09:20PM
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Padres Lose to Dodgers in NLDS Game 1 - The New York Times
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