The San Diego Padres are one win away from the National League Championship Series. Tuesday night at Petco Park, the Padres outlasted their NL West rival Los Angeles Dodgers (SD 6, LA 5) and took a 2-1 lead in the best-of-five Division Series. The Dodgers had baseball's best record during the regular season, and now they're one loss away from going home.
Game 3 was part chaos and part pitchers' duel. The Dodgers struck first when Mookie Betts snapped his postseason 0-for-22 slump (that dated back to 2022) with a first inning solo homer. Jurickson Profar very nearly robbed that homer, much like he robbed Mookie's homer in the first inning of Game 2. This time Profar ran out of the room and Betts hit the home run.
The Padres took control of Game 3 in a hectic second inning that featured defensive mistakes, big hits, and some plain ol' luck. Here's a breakdown of the inning that defined Game 3 and could very define this year's NLDS.
The inning started with a pitch clock violation
The Petco Park crowd had a tangible impact on Game 3. Manny Machado, whom Dodgers manager Dave Roberts said was "pretty disrespectful" when he threw a ball toward the Dodgers dugout in Game 2, led off the second inning, and the crowd chanted "Manny! Manny!" as he stood in the box. Walker Buehler was unable to hear his PitchCom and got dinged with a pitch clock violation, so the at-bat started with a 1-0 count. With the count in his favor, Machado opened the inning with a single. The Padres were in business.
Machado prevented a potential double play
The defense really hurt Buehler in that second inning. To be clear, Buehler wasn't good, but the defense made the inning worse. After Machado's leadoff single, Jackson Merrill pulled a ground ball to first base, and Freddie Freeman threw to second base to start a potential 3-6-3 (or 3-6-1) double play. The throw, however, hit Machado in the shoulder, and sailed into left field.
Note Machado was running on the infield grass when Freeman's throw hit him. That is a legal play, and a smart one. Running out of the baseline only applies when the runner is avoiding a tag. Machado's a career infielder and a former shortstop who knows the rule. He's been on the other side of it.
"I would have done the same thing," Freeman said about Machado running on the grass after Game 2 (via the Washington Post).
By running on the grass, Machado put himself in position to disrupt the potential double play, and that's exactly what happened. Had Freeman been able to field the ground ball standing up, he could have gotten a better angle to throw to second. That was not the case though. The Dodgers should have gotten at least one out there, and maybe two. Instead, they got none.
The Dodgers botched a double play
Machado was able to reach third base when Freeman's throw hit him in the shoulder and wound up in left field. The next batter, Xander Bogaerts, hit what should have been a double play ball to Miguel Rojas at shortstop. A run would have scored to tie the score 1-1 on the double play but the Dodgers would have gotten two outs and avoided a big inning.
Alas and alack, the Dodgers again turned a potential double play into zero outs. After fielding the ground ball, Rojas was indecisive, and opted to take it to the bag himself rather than flip the ball to second baseman Gavin Lux for a traditional 6-4-3 double play. Merrill beat Rojas to the bag and Bogaerts beat the throw to first. Machado scored and everyone was safe.
Instead of one run in, bases empty, and two outs, the Padres had one run in with runners on first and second with no outs. That's an enormous swing. Rojas got caught in between, not sure whether to take the ball himself or flip it to Lux. Clearly, he should have flipped the ball to Lux, who was waiting at second well in advance of Merrill's arrival. Rojas didn't do that. He took it himself, got zero outs, and opened the door for San Diego.
Peralta made the Dodgers pay
What a pickup David Peralta has been for the Padres. The 37-year-old began the season in Triple-A with the Cubs, got released on May 10, signed with the Padres eight days later, then got called up on May 22. He was summoned to replace Bogaerts, who fractured his shoulder diving for a ball. Peralta hit .267/.335/.415 for San Diego, including .279/.329/.431 against righties. He got significant playing time while Fernando Tatis Jr. spent two months on the injured list with a stress reaction in his leg.
Peralta drew the Game 3 start at DH against Buehler, and after Rojas opened the door for the Padres with his indecisiveness on the potential double play, Peralta kicked that door open with a double down the line and into the right field corner. That scored Merrill from second and Bogaerts from first to give the Padres a 3-1 lead.
Freeman is playing through a sprained right ankle -- he came up hobbled after stretching for a throw at first base later in Game 3, though he remained in the game -- and I can't help but wonder whether he would have been able to make a play on Peralta's double at full strength. Even if he couldn't turn it into an out, keeping the ball on the infield would have prevented the two runs from scoring. No such luck though. The ball got by Freeman and two runs scored.
Cronenworth beat out an infield single
This was not a defensive mistake -- this was simply a well-placed ground ball -- though it is another example of things just not going Buehler's way in that second inning. The two double plays weren't turned, Peralta's double was just out of Freeman's reach, then Jake Cronenworth broke his 0 for October with a little ground ball that Rojas fielded to his left, but didn't attempt to throw to first because he didn't have a play. A textbook infield single.
Following that play, Roberts and the Dodgers trainer came out to check on Rojas, who has been nursing torn adductor muscle. He remained in the game in the second inning, then exited after running the bases in the third. Anyway, Peralta advanced to third base on Cronenworth's infield single, and later scored on Kyle Higashioka's sacrifice fly. That gave the Padres a 4-1 lead.
Tatis with an exclamation point
There are few things cooler in this sport than a monster homer and a monster bat flip to cap off a big inning. After Luis Arraez popped out to short for the second out of the second inning, Buehler got ahead in the count 0-2 on Tatis. He was one strike away from finally -- finally -- ending the second inning. Instead, Buehler left a fastball over the heart of the plate, and Tatis did what great hitters do to bad 0-2 pitches. Behold, the rare good use of ump cam:
That was Tatis' third homer of the NLDS and his fourth of the postseason. He is 10 for 18 (.556) with two doubles, four homers, three walks, and zero strikeouts in five games this October. The home run capped San Diego's six-run second inning, an inning in which the Dodgers made two key defensive mistakes (or really one smart play by Machado and one key defensive mistake) and the Padres took advantage and them some.
To Buehler's and the Dodgers' credit, they did not roll over after the Padres put six runs on the board in the second to took a 6-1 lead. Teoscar Hernández clubbed a grand slam in the next half-inning to cut the lead to 6-5. Michael King and the stout San Diego bullpen then retired 20 of the final 21 Dodgers to close out the game. Game 3 when from chaotic early to a tense late.
Game 4 is Wednesday at Petco Park. The Padres will start righty Dylan Cease on short rest. He threw 82 pitches in 3 1/3 innings in Game 1 on Saturday. The Dodgers are going with a bullpen game. Their "starter" has not yet been announced. A Padres win sends the Padres to the NLCS. A Dodgers win gives us Game 5 at Dodger Stadium on Friday.
