Toe-to-toe with the Dodgers
The Padres lost, but once again they showed that they can play on the same level as their division rivals.
The San Diego Padres lost a 1-0 game in extra innings to the Los Angeles Dodgers last night. It wasn’t a game where they were outmatched or made mistakes to lose. The Padres went toe-to-toe with the best team in baseball (and one of the best regular season teams in NL history) for 9 innings before finally giving up a run in the 10th when the ghost-runner scored on a single.
I’m not usually the guy who praises a team for a “good loss”, but that was one of them. The Padres are getting playoff tested right now, throwing everything they can at each of these Dodgers games in hopes of winning the series, and they’re mostly finding that they’re ready for the challenge.
Most importantly, they’re finding ways to steady the ship and fight back when everything doesn’t go right. They won on Tuesday night after two big mistakes in the 9th inning helped the Dodgers tie the game. Joe Musgrove ended up pitching a pretty good game on Wednesday night after a very nearly disastrous 1st inning.
The San Diego 3-4-5 hitters all got hits in the game, and Machado and Nola both left this game with multiple hits. Unfortunately, Julio Urías is really good and was able to pitch out of every jam he faced. The bullpen behind him was pretty great last night, too.
I don’t know if it was the simple playoff atmosphere or Petco Park, but it did seem that offense was not on the menu last night. Most of the hits I saw were bloop singles. Balls hit far seemed to stay up, keeping them in the ballpark and giving defenders time to get to them. On nights like that, it’s better to be lucky than good.
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