The San Diego Padres crushed a franchise playoff record six home runs and blew out the Los Angeles Dodgers, 10-2, in NLDS Game 2 on Sunday night in L.A. The six homers also tied an MLB playoff record, and the win evened the best-of-five series at 1-1. Fernando Tatis Jr. hit two of those home runs, and the Padres got a win that featured some heated trash talk between players and an incident with fans at Dodger Stadium that caused a 12-minute delay.
The Padres' victory comes a day after San Diego held (and then squandered) a pair of multi-run leads over the Dodgers. The past is the past, however, and the next team to win two will advance to the NL Championship Series.
Here are five takeaways from Game 2 of this particular NLDS, as well as a brief preview of what to expect from Tuesday's Game 3 at Petco Park.
1. Darvish deals
Both starters scuffled in Game 1, with Yoshinobu Yamamoto departing after three innings and Dylan Cease battling his efficiency. San Diego's Yu Darvish, a onetime Dodger, atoned for those shaky outings all by himself on Sunday with a bit of a throwback effort.
Darvish spun a gem, tossing seven one-run innings while yielding just a run on three hits and two walks. Although his strikeout total was on the meager side (three), he was highly efficient throughout the night. Darvish required only 83 pitches to get through seven -- or, an average of just under 12 pitches per frame.
Darvish was limited to 16 starts during the regular season on account of injury and a personal matter. He was effective when available, generating a 124 ERA+ and a 3.55 strikeout-to-walk ratio. Sunday night, though, was a good reminder that he still has plenty left in the tank despite having celebrated his 38th birthday back in August.
Darvish's counterpart, Jack Flaherty, scored in the sixth after surrendering four runs on five hits and a walk. Speaking of Flaherty ….
2. Padres lean on long ball, defense
For the second consecutive night, the Padres jumped on the Dodgers early. Fernando Tatis Jr., the second batter of the game, launched a solo home run off Flaherty to give the Padres a 1-0 lead out of the gate.
David Peralta, in the lineup in place of Donovan Solano, would clobber his own home run in the second inning. Peralta's shot plated two runs to make it 3-0:
Jackson Merrill, who singled in the Padres' fourth run of the night, added his own two-run shot and Xander Bogaerts launched another solo blast to put the game out of reach late. Not like the Padres were done, either, as Tatis hit his second longball in the ninth after Kyle Higashioka went deep.
Merrill stayed true to the Padres' other theme of the night, too, by making an outstanding defensive play. Here's his highlight-reel worthy catch:
Tatis also stole extra bases from Freddie Freeman:
Merrill and Tatis were outdone only by Jurickson Profar, who robbed a home run in the first inning off the bat of Mookie Betts. Profar didn't reveal that he had made the grab right away, resulting in Betts going into his home-run trot and celebrating what appeared to be a game-tying blast. Not so, however. Take a look:
Profar would play a role in another notable development later on ….
3. Emotions run high
It's fair to write that Game 2 brought out emotions all over.
Flaherty would be caught on camera jawing with Manny Machado after exiting the game during the sixth inning. Those bad feelings stemmed from Flaherty seemingly instructing Machado to sit down after striking him out.
Machado, predictably, didn't appreciate the command.
The game was later delayed during the bottom of the seventh inning by more than 10 minutes after Dodgers fans threw items onto the field, including a couple balls at Profar and bottles at Tatis.
Profar, Tatis, and the other Padres, thankfully, did not appear to be harmed by the fans' poor decision making. Manny Machado subsequently called a team meeting in the Padres dugout to address what had happened:
4. Freeman exits with ankle injury
Dodgers first baseman Freddie Freeman's status was up in the air until just before the series got underway on Saturday because of the ankle he rolled late in the regular season.
While Freeman appeared to put any lingering concerns about his availability to rest in Game 1, particularly when he stole a base, that sense of relief may have been premature. That's because Freeman departed Game 2 during the middle innings with ankle discomfort.
"They told me this is a 4-6 week IL stint, and I'm going to try to do this in a week and play," Freeman said on Friday. "I'm not going to be hindering, I don't think. There's certain plays, like the slowing down stuff. I can't thank (team physical therapist) Bernard Li, our whole training staff, for getting me able to be able to do this."
Freeman's status for Game 3 is unclear.
5. Betts continues to scuffle
Dodgers outfielder Mookie Betts extended some recent postseason woes on Sunday, going 0 for 4 on the night. He went 0 for 2 with three walks in Game 1, prolonging a hitless streak that dates back to the 2022 NL Divisional Series against, yes, these Padres.
Indeed, Betts entered the night 0 for his last 19 in postseason play. He's now up to 0 for his last 23.
To be fair to Betts, he appeared to have snapped that streak with a first-inning home run … only for Profar to snag the ball for a very long out. It's like that sometimes, even for one of the game's best players.
What's next?
As mentioned in the introduction, Monday will represent a travel day in this series. The next time we see the Dodgers and Padres play will be Tuesday. It'll come in a new setting, as the teams will have relocated to Petco Park in San Diego. The Padres are set to start right-hander Michael King, who was stellar in the wild-card round against the Braves. The Dodgers will counter with righty Walker Buehler.
