SAN DIEGO — On their option to an historic NLDS upset final October, the Padres made do with out Fernando Tatis Jr. They shocked the baseball world anyway, dethroning the 111-win NL West champion Dodgers in 4 video games, flipping this once-lopsided rivalry squarely on its head.
But now that Tatis is again, the dynamic has so clearly shifted. The Padres aren’t gorgeous anybody. They, too, are one of many sport’s juggernauts in 2023, thought-about the favourite to win the division by many prognostications. On Friday evening, they appeared the half.
Tatis’ return to the Padres-Dodgers rivalry was, naturally, a dramatic one. (Heck, it’s his rivalry as a lot as anybody’s. Was Padres-Dodgers even truly a factor earlier than Tatis arrived?) He homered twice off Clayton Kershaw in a 5-2 San Diego victory — a towering drive to left-center, tying the sport within the third and a laser into the left-field seats to place the Padres on prime within the fifth.
It marked simply the ninth time in Kershaw’s illustrious profession that any particular person hitter has taken him deep twice in the identical recreation. Tatis is the one participant to have executed so twice. In truth, the final participant with a multihomer recreation off the Dodgers’ possible Hall of Fame-bound left-hander was … Tatis himself, almost 25 months in the past.
“He’s one of the best of all time,” Tatis stated. “When you’re facing a guy like that, you for sure bring your 100 percent that day.”
In the interim, in fact, Tatis missed everything of the 2022 season, first as a result of harm, then an 80-game PED suspension, which solely expired final month. Tatis hadn’t fairly appeared himself on the plate in his first two weeks again, however the Padres nonetheless thrived with him again of their lineup. They entered Friday at 8-4 since Tatis’ return, enjoying their finest baseball of the season.
But if Tatis returned two weeks in the past in Arizona, on Friday evening, he was effectively and really again. His fifth-inning homer left his bat at 110.8 mph and landed within the seats right away. Tatis dropped his bat, then hopped a couple of occasions earlier than turning to the house dugout and letting out a scream. This was Tatis in his factor.
“This kid, man,” stated shortstop Xander Bogaerts. “He’s very special.”
Bogaerts made his personal introduction to the rivalry on Friday with a pair of walks and an RBI groundout. As a crew, the Padres would work 5 walks towards Kershaw and 11 whole — a franchise document in a recreation towards the Dodgers.
Throw Bogaerts’ offseason arrival on prime of Tatis’ return, and the Padres have each cause to really feel the rivalry has tilted. A 12 months in the past, the Dodgers received all six regular-season sequence. They received the West by 22 video games.
But the script flipped in October, and the Padres have since added two stars to the lineup that beat the Dodgers eight months in the past.
“We can have success against anybody,” Tatis stated.
Backed by Tatis’ two homers, Yu Darvish was wonderful Friday evening, pitching 6 2/3 innings, whereas permitting two runs (one earned) and putting out six.
Darvish bumped into hassle within the first two innings. Mookie Betts walked and scored within the first, earlier than Darvish escaped additional harm. In the second, after Miguel Vargas’ triple, Ha-Seong Kim snared David Peralta’s liner and fired to 3rd for an inning-ending double play.
From there, Darvish was dominant, retiring the subsequent 12 batters he confronted whereas leaning closely on his two-seamer.
“Yu didn’t have his best stuff by any stretch in the first inning,” Padres supervisor Bob Melvin stated. “And then all of a sudden, you look up, and he’s in the seventh. … It was a complete turnaround.”
“They were super loud,” Tatis stated. “They brought it today. It was just amazing — an amazing vibe … and amazing baseball to be playing like that.”
These two groups will meet 12 extra occasions through the common season. Perhaps they’ll play a couple of extra video games in October. If final season is any indication, the Padres ought to know that scores aren’t settled in May. The Dodgers, anyway, nonetheless maintain a one-game lead within the standings.
But the Padres took Round 1. In some ways, it was extra of the identical, their fourth straight victory over Los Angeles courting again to the NLDS. Except this time, they’d a sure swaggering celebrity again atop their lineup.
Content Source: www.mlb.com