Three of one of the best handful of hitters on the planet had been on the identical area at Yankee Stadium yesterday, and the Phillies/Mets rivalry is as venomous as any in baseball, however take a straw ballot of the actual sickos and so they’ll inform you the marquee Division Collection tilt is the one between the Dodgers and Padres. It’s not solely a bitter intradivisional matchup, it marks the MLB playoff debut of the Face of Baseball and options so most of the sport’s stars that this paragraph would want to cup its fingers collectively to hold all of their names. Recreation 1 completely delivered on the hype, because the groups traded haymakers each different inning for the primary half of an extremely tense contest earlier than the Dodgers’ relievers snuffed out no matter embers of a rally the Padres may muster from the fifth inning on. Los Angeles received 7-5 to take a 1-0 lead within the best-of-five collection.
With the solar sinking low in a hazy, purple Angelino sky, the Padres drew blood within the high of the primary. Yoshinobu Yamamoto started the sport by surrendering a leadoff single to Luis Arraez earlier than two wild pitches/handed balls shuttled him to 3rd. Then Fernando Tatis Jr. walked, and Yamamoto formally had a no-out mess on his fingers. That will quickly be cleaned up in San Diego’s favor by a Manny Machado two-run homer, which got here on a two-strike splitter that had so little dive to it that broadcaster Joe Davis misidentified the pitch. The Padres plated three within the first and muffled the house crowd:
MANNY MACHADO KNOWS #POSTSEASON! pic.twitter.com/3Q7OFuP2ul
— MLB (@MLB) October 6, 2024
Quickly, anyway. The Dodgers didn’t reply with precise runs immediately, however from the very starting, they put stress on Dylan Stop, who walked batters and allowed a number of baserunners in three of the innings he started. Stop wiggled out of bother within the first however not the second, as a leadoff stroll to catcher Will Smith and subsequent single by second baseman Gavin Lux (why throw Lux something however fastballs there?) ensured Shohei Ohtani would come to the plate with runners on base because the lineup turned over. That is what adopted:
OH MY GOODNESS!!
SHOHEI OHTANI HOMERS FOR THE FIRST TIME IN HIS POSTSEASON CAREER!!
? Watch in 4K on the FOX Sports activities App pic.twitter.com/SMgBYSBA8f
— FOX Sports activities: MLB (@MLBONFOX) October 6, 2024
The sound of the ball off Ohtani’s bat as he compressed Stop’s heater was heard by the astronauts caught on the Worldwide Area Station, an equalizing, three-run jaw-dropper that left the bat at simply shy of 112 mph.
The seesaw tipped again within the different course within the high of the third inning. A Jackson Merrill stroll was sandwiched between doubles by Tatis and Xander Bogaerts, the latter of whom hooked a dangling Yamamoto curveball into the left area nook to plate two runs; San Diego had a 5-3 lead heading into the underside of the third. Whereas Dave Roberts allowed Yamamoto to complete that inning, he would begin to string relievers collectively starting within the fourth.
And it was the fourth that might turn out to be essentially the most dramatic and consequential inning of the sport. Padres supervisor Mike Shildt was additionally moderately proactive in eradicating Stop, who as soon as once more allowed the underside of Los Angeles’ lineup to achieve base forward of Ohtani. Shildt didn’t let Stop face Ohtani for a 3rd time and yanked him in favor of lefty Adrian Morejon, who entered with Tommy Edman and Miguel Rojas on base. At occasions, it seemed like Morejon is perhaps throwing gasoline on the fireplace. After practically hitting Ohtani (after which breaking the fourth wall to acknowledge a Dodger Stadium crowd that started booing him), Morejon beat Shohei with a fastball and broke his bat to pressure a weak pop up, however the ball discovered daylight in shallow middle area, fell in for a single, and loaded the bases. A wild pitch allowed a run to attain and left a base open for Mookie Betts, who was then deliberately walked with a 2-2 depend. Freddie Freeman adopted with a grounder hit to Padres first baseman Donovan Solano, who made an superior play to chop the runner down on the plate:
What a play by Donovan Solano to maintain the run off of the board for the Padres! pic.twitter.com/g94FUlzwHy
— FOX Sports activities: MLB (@MLBONFOX) October 6, 2024
Particularly on condition that Freeman is getting back from an ankle damage, it’s doable that Solano had the time to as a substitute throw to second base and begin an inning-ending double play. That will have been a lot simpler to execute for a left-handed first baseman than a righty like Solano, who would have wanted to flip his hips round earlier than feeding the shortstop. Solely with the good thing about hindsight does it really feel crucial for Solano to have tried to show two there.
That’s as a result of, after Jeremiah Estrada relieved Morejon, Teoscar Hernández instantly singled in two runs (nice job by Tatis backing up Merrill on this play, or it could have been worse) and gave the Dodgers a lead that they’d not relinquish. The Dodgers added a run within the fifth (thanks largely to a Machado error) and maintained their two-run lead for the remainder of the sport:
Ohtani, Freeman, Lux and Edman every had two hits for the Dodgers, however Los Angeles’ bullpen was actually the important thing to their Recreation 1 victory. Tasked with working many of the sport after Yamamoto’s quick and rocky begin, a mixture of Ryan Brasier, Alex Vesia, Evan Phillips, Michael Kopech (who seemed shaky himself), and Blake Treinen (whose peak slider seems prefer it’s again) allowed simply two hits throughout six whole shutout innings. The Padres did threaten on the very finish of the sport, however Treinen’s stuff was merely an excessive amount of for anybody to get a key hit, and the sport ended with Machado providing at a slider that began on the sting of the plate and completed in Huntington Park.
The Padres bullpen additionally pitched properly, notably Jason Adam, who solely wanted 19 pitches to get 4 outs, together with Ohtani, Betts, and Freeman. Solely Treinen, who threw 39 pitches en path to a five-out save, was used to the purpose the place he’ll seemingly be shelved for Sunday night time’s Recreation 2, with Yu Darvish and Jack Flaherty set to the take the mound.
