LOS ANGELES — The Dodgers won. The Giants rallied to win in the ninth. Lather, rinse, repeat.
Picking up right where they left off Wednesday night – seriously, right where they left off – Mookie Betts and Corey Seager hit back-to-back home runs in the first inning. Justin Turner and AJ Pollock did the same in the fourth inning and the Dodgers homered their way past the San Diego Padres again, 8-3, Thursday night.
And picking up right where they have left off seemingly every day this season, the Giants rallied from a three-run deficit to beat the Diamondbacks on a walkoff RBI single in the ninth inning. The win keeps the Dodgers two games back with three games left to play, helpless to catch the Giants even if they sweep the Brewers in the final series of the season unless the Padres come back to life long enough to win at least two of three in San Francisco.
“I wouldn’t say helpless. I would just say that this is two teams playing really good baseball in a pennant race,” Dodgers manager Dave Roberts said. “Like I’ve said many times over, we can be in tune with what’s going on outside of our games which is part of the fun. But most importantly we just have to play good baseball. However, we get there, if we do that, bring it on. It doesn’t matter who we play or what format.”
Roberts acknowledged that he did turn the Giants game on in his office in time to see LaMonte Wade Jr.’s walkoff single — Wade’s sixth game-tying or go-ahead hit in the ninth inning or later this season, the most by any player in the past 40 seasons, according to STATS Inc.
“I did not,” Justin Turner said to the same question. “I’m not worried about them and what they’re doing. We have to control what’s in front of us. We did a great job tonight.
“The only thing that’s in front of us is a game tomorrow. We have to figure out a way to win a game tomorrow. That’s all we’re worried about.”
The Dodgers have done that very well over the past 60 games — the length of last season’s pandemic-shortened regular season. They are 44-16 in that time (one game better than last year’s regular-season record, the best in baseball) but have gained just one game on the Giants.
“We’re still chasing the division title,” Mookie Betts said. “We have to keep playing. No letting off the gas.”
They have kept the pedal to the metal against the Padres. After hitting six home runs in Wednesday’s stirring comeback, the Dodgers hit five more Thursday.
The win completed a third consecutive series sweep of the Padres by the Dodgers. After losing seven of their first 10 “World Series” matchups with the Padres – Justin Turner’s spring hyperbole about the challenge presented by the Padres – the Dodgers beat their southern neighbors nine in a row, adding to a second-half collapse that will leave the much-ballyhooed 2021 Padres (78-81) without a winning record to show for all the preseason hype.
The back-to-back bombs by Betts and Seager gave the Dodgers six home runs in a span of 10 plate appearances against the Padres, stretching back to Wednesday’s four-home run rally in the eighth inning – seven homers in 14 plate appearances if you stretch it back to Betts’ ‘plus-one’ homer in the seventh inning of that comeback.
When Turner and Pollock also went back-to-back in the fourth inning, it was the Dodgers’ third set of back-to-back home runs in a five-inning span – Max Muncy and Pollock in the eighth inning Wednesday, Betts and Seager in the first Thursday then Turner and Pollock in the fourth. Pollock’s home run (his third in two games) was the Dodgers’ ninth in a six-inning stretch.
While the Dodgers won for frequency, Fernando Tatis Jr. took top honors for distance.
The Padres’ slumping shortstop broke an 0-for-12 stretch that featured nine strikeouts by making a 1-and-0 slider from Tony Gonsolin regret its very existence.
Tatis crushed the hanger over the left field pavilion and out of the stadium (possibly clipping the pavilion roof on the way). Estimated at 467 feet, the only longer home run at Dodger Stadium since the dawn of the Statcast era (2015) was a 475-foot drive by the Miami Marlins’ iteration of Giancarlo Stanton that year.
Tatis’ impressive drive made him the fifth hitter ever to hit a ball out of Dodger Stadium. Hall of Famer Willie Stargell is the lone left-hander to do it (and he did it twice). Tatis, Stanton, Mark McGwire and Mike Piazza are the only hitters to clear the left-field pavilion.
“I remember a home run Stanton hit at Petco Park. It was a line drive homer. As far as sheer velocity, I remember that one was hit pretty hard,” said Roberts who was on the Padres’ coaching staff at the time. “But as far as velocity, distance and trajectory, I have not (seen one hit farther than Tatis’).”
It was the last spasm of a dying team – though the Dodgers have to hope the Padres are revivified enough to take at least two games from the Giants in their season-ending series by the bay this weekend.
The Dodgers took a land-based route to blowing the game open in the sixth, scoring three runs with nary a home run. Singles by Trea Turner, Will Smith, Justin Turner and Cody Bellinger with a sacrifice fly by Pollock mixed in sufficed.Seager’s second home run of the night (a solo homer off Padres reliever Austin Adams in the seventh) capped the night.
Last year’s NLCS and World Series MVP is getting a running start this year. Since the start of August, Seager is batting .323 (61 for 189) with 15 doubles, 11 home runs and 33 RBIs.
“We saw it all postseason and the last five weeks this is what we’re seeing,” Roberts said.
