LOS ANGELES – Six weeks after taking a nine-game lead within the Nationwide League West, the Dodgers’ sizable benefit was not simply dwindling; it was gone.
The reigning World Sequence champions entered a crucial weekend wobbling, having misplaced 21 of their final 33 video games. They hoped a go to from the revamped rivals who overtook them for the division lead would possibly assist them uncover the urgency and depth that had been lacking.
Contemplate them discovered.
After sweeping the San Diego Padres at Dodger Stadium, the Dodgers reclaimed their place atop the NL West, reestablished the pecking order in one in all MLB’s most hotly-contested division races and strengthened the assumption that the final couple of months of substandard play isn’t essentially indicative of what’s to return for one of the vital gifted rosters in baseball.
“I believe it’d reinforce it to others exterior of the locker room,” supervisor Dave Roberts stated. “However it’s one thing of, like, we’ve bought to get going and never simply speak about it.”
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This weekend was a begin.
Depth, Roberts defined, is just not all the time overt, the way in which it was the final time the Dodgers and Padres met in the midst of June, when the recollections of final yr’s contentious division sequence conflict nonetheless lingered. A condensed slate of video games between the 2 rivals invited simmering pressure. Over the course of seven matchups in 11 days, there have been 11 hit batters, a benches-clearing incident, three suspensions and phrases exchanged between gamers and managers.
Between the strains, although, the Dodgers clearly had the higher hand, taking 5 of these seven contests. The Padres, with a lineup missing depth at that time, had been extra playoff hopefuls than reliable championship contenders.
That has since modified.
For the previous two months, the Padres have once more demonstrated their willingness to do no matter it takes to win now. Their litany of strikes on the deadline, which emptied the higher ranges of their farm system in an effort to deliver a championship to San Diego as rapidly as attainable, epitomized that.
The Dodgers, in the meantime, scoffed on the costs for prime abilities available on the market and have since paid the value for a quiet deadline, scuffling over the previous few weeks with a tattered bullpen whereas the Padres reap the rewards of their audaciousness.
With a new-look roster, the Padres entered this weekend — and a stretch of six essential video games in 10 days towards the Dodgers — having received 14 of their final 17 video games. Within the course of, they went from trailing within the division by six video games on July 25 to main it by one lower than three weeks later.
“You understand, the division isn’t received or misplaced within the subsequent 10 days,” Clayton Kershaw stated. “However it is going to make an affect. We all know that.”
Clayton Kershaw had a classic outing in Friday’s win over the Padres. (Picture by Harry How/Getty Pictures)
This time, there was an excessive amount of at stake for a skirmish between the division rivals.
On Friday afternoon, each managers insisted that what occurred previously remained there. The following 72 hours would show it. There have been no spats, back-and-forth barbs or bench-clearing brouhahas.
It was only a show of dominance by a Dodgers staff that bought the higher hand again because it eyes a twelfth division title in 13 years.
“I believe everyone knows who we’re in right here,” Freddie Freeman stated, “and the way good we might be.”
The depth Roberts sought from his group pertained solely to his staff’s efficiency after a prolonged spell of uninspired play.
Coming into the weekend, the Dodgers had simply been swept by the Angels. In 4 of their earlier 5 losses, they held a one-run lead within the eighth inning or later. Their depleted bullpen and risky lineup had prevented the group from reaching its potential.
“I do assume that there are some issues that we are able to get that tightened up,” Roberts stated. “Whenever you’re enjoying towards a very good ballclub, and it’s going to be 50,000-plus right here, excited followers, that sort of heightens depth and focus.”
So does having Kershaw on the mound.
On Friday at dwelling, Kershaw ended the Dodgers’ four-game skid and lowered his ERA for the yr to three.01 with six innings of one-run ball.
“It is a recreation in August, clearly,” Kershaw stated. “It is not that vast a deal. However the way in which we had been going, it felt like a giant recreation for us.”
Earlier than the sequence started, Roberts stated he would handle the sequence with extra urgency, contemplating the opponent and the circumstances, however added that it’s nonetheless not Sport 7 of the World Sequence.
The Friday matchup — a recreation wherein Kershaw was pulled at 76 pitches and Blake Treinen, one of many few wholesome high-leverage right-handers within the Dodgers’ bullpen, was requested for just one out — exemplified how the Dodgers are nonetheless maintaining a tally of the longer term whereas recognizing the significance of the current.
“When you’ve the expertise that we do, you simply gotta sort of play good baseball,” Roberts stated. “And for those who do this, we will win greater than we lose.”
The Dodgers reclaimed the division lead a day later, letting the Padres run themselves out of first place in a calamity that strayed from the kind of play that put San Diego on this place. Inside the first two innings of Saturday’s 6-0 thrashing, Dodgers catcher Will Smith had already thrown out three runners on the basepaths, Padres starter Dylan Stop had issued six free passes, and Padres outfielder Jackson Merrill let a two-out fly ball come out of glove on the warning monitor in heart subject to attain two runs.
That set the Dodgers up on Sunday to do what they didn’t per week in the past, after they let an opportunity to brush the AL East frontrunners Toronto Blue Jays at dwelling slip away. They didn’t need a repeat.
Manny Machado and the Padres entered the weekend atop the NL West however are as soon as once more behind the Dodgers after a three-game sweep. (Picture by Harry How/Getty Pictures)
That was evident with who was behind the plate. Smith, their All-Star catcher, doesn’t usually catch in a day recreation after an evening recreation. This weekend, he caught all three video games.
“This can be a good time to go for the jugular,” Roberts stated.
The Dodgers did simply that, attacking early with a three-run homer from Freeman within the first inning, then responding late on a go-ahead homer from Mookie Betts within the eighth inning to complete off the sweep with a 5-4 win. Alex Vesia secured the ultimate 5 outs after approaching Roberts and telling him he wished the chance within the ninth.
“You gotta win the shut video games,” Freeman stated. “We’ve had our probabilities to win video games by one or two runs, and we simply weren’t in a position to pull them off there within the final week. We had been in a position to pull them off this week…So gotta preserve it going, preserve our foot on the fuel.”
Mookie Betts’ eighth-inning solo shot proved to be the determined in Sunday’s win. (Picture by Emma Sharon/MLB Images through Getty Pictures)
Because the Dodgers wait for his or her prime bullpen items to return to well being, this weekend was the components: clutch hits, sound protection and, most significantly, elite beginning pitching performances from a rotation that’s lastly wholesome and rounding into type.
Starters Kershaw, Blake Snell and Tyler Glasnow mixed to give up three runs in 17 innings towards the Padres’ reloaded lineup. The Dodgers have now received eight instances in 10 matchups towards the Padres this yr to safe the season sequence.
The groups will meet for the ultimate time this common season subsequent weekend in San Diego, when the Dodgers’ urgency and depth will likely be examined once more.
“I don’t assume anybody in that clubhouse doubted our skills and the way good we might be,” Roberts stated. “Actually, it was simply good to play a very good sequence, begin to end. I believe we respect these guys, I believe they respect us, and now we’ve bought to show the web page and transfer on.”
Rowan Kavner is an MLB author for FOX Sports activities. He beforehand coated the L.A. Dodgers, LA Clippers and Dallas Cowboys. An LSU grad, Rowan was born in California, grew up in Texas, then moved again to the West Coast in 2014. Observe him on X at @RowanKavner.
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