For a first act, it was deafening madness.
For a first step, it was a dizzying leap.
For a Game 1, it was a Game 7, nine innings fought and cheered and inhaled by more than 53,000 bouncing fans as if it were the last bit of baseball on Earth.
Wait, the Dodgers are going to play more games like this?
Yes, absolutely, at least 10 more, as many as 18 more, and bring it on, more, more, more, the senses can’t get enough of what the Dodgers brought to the San Diego Padres on Saturday night in their 7-5 victory in Game 1 of the National League Division Series at Dodger Stadium.
It began with blue flags flapping from the dugout roofs and blue rags raised and waved through the rollicking full house.
It ended with Blake Treinen striking out Donovan Solano with the bases loaded in the eighth, then striking out Manny Machado with the tying runs on base to finish the ninth.
From start to finish, pure madness, amid a rabble that never calmed, never quieted, never quit.
“We’re going to fight, every pitch, every at-bat,” Teoscar Hernández said.
The Padres quickly led by three. Boom! Shohei Ohtani caught them with one swing.
The Padres quickly led again by two. Bang! The Dodgers passed them with a wild pitch and a Hernández rocket.
The Padres were reeling. The Dodgers were unrelenting, piling on after a Machado meltdown and finishing them off with a blistering bullpen that threw six shutout innings.
More, yeah, more, the Dodgers need more of this sort of fire if they are to chase away their October first-round demons and finish off the Padres in a best-of-five rematch of two seasons ago.
“I could really feel the intensity of the stadium before the game began, and I thoroughly enjoyed it,” Ohtani said through interpreter Will Ireton.
He wasn’t the only one having fun. This was the Dodgers’ first playoff win in 725 days. Given their recent history, this was arguably the biggest Game 1 victory in a Dodgers postseason since Kirk Gibson went deep against the Oakland Athletics in 1988.
The Dodgers desperately needed this sort of night to avoid the sense of familiar dread that would have descended upon the clubhouse with a loss. They desperately needed to show that they will not be embarrassed out of the postseason again.
In more than three hours that felt like three minutes Saturday, they proved all that and more, more, more.
Back in 2022, the Padres won this series in four games against a haughty Dodgers team that lacked intensity. That’s clearly not happening this time; witness one play that led to zero runs but meant everything.
In the third inning, while nursing a badly sprained ankle that nearly kept him out of the lineup, Freddie Freeman stole second base.
Seriously, he stole second on one leg.
“If I can’t play the game the right way, I shouldn’t be out there,” Freeman said. “I was doing good enough. Adrenaline took over. “
Dodgers baserunner Freddie Freeman beats the tag of San Diego second baseman Jake Cronenworth to steal second base in the third inning Saturday.
(Gina Ferazzi / Los Angeles Times)
Last season, in this same series, the Arizona Diamondbacks swept a Dodgers team that lacked all offensive aggressiveness. That’s not happening this time; witness the start of the Dodgers’ fourth-inning, go-ahead rally.
It began when Tommy Edman laid down a perfect bunt to an uncovered left side of the infield.
Believe it, somebody in modern baseball actually bunted their way on base.
“Putting pressure, every pitch, every at-bat,” Hernandez said. “Trying to pass it to the other guy. Trying to make situations.”
More fire, more fight and, of course, the Dodgers have added one weapon they were missing the last two years, arguably the greatest weapon in the history of baseball.
More, more, more Ohtani! He is officially unreal, he is undeniably from another world, and he proved it again twice in three innings that changed the game.
“He injected an absolute lightning bolt into the stadium,” Max Muncy said. “From then on it was, ‘All right, we’ve got this. This is not the same as years past.’”
In the Dodgers’ 7-5 win in the opening game of the National League Division Series, Shohei Ohtani hit a three-run home run to tie the game. And six scoreless innings from the Dodgers’ bullpen kept the lead from changing.
With two out and two runners on base in the second inning while trailing 3-0, Ohtani fouled a ball off his left knee and he grabbed the knee and winced in pain. But, hey, remember, this is Superman. He knocked the ensuing four-seam fastball 111 mph into the right-field pavilion accompanied by a roar that made the press box literally sway. And forget all of his usual outward politeness. His reaction to this latest bit of ferocity was downright fierce, an angrily thrown bat and an extended howl.
After the Padres rebounded to score a couple of more runs off horrific starter Yoshinobu Yamamoto — more on that later — here came Ohtani again.
In the fourth, Superman came up with two runners on base again thanks to the surprise bunt by Edman and a single by Miguel Rojas. This time, Ohtani broke his bat but swung so hard, the ball still floated into center field for a bases-loading single. After a run scored on Adrian Morejon’s wild pitch, Hernandez lined a single to center that scored two runs when rookie Jackson Merrill misplayed the short hop.
That gave the Dodgers a one-run lead that increased an inning later after Machado lazily uncorked a wild throw to first that led to another Dodgers run.
Indeed, the constantly booed Machado homered in the first inning but eventually came unglued. The entire Padres team seemed unnerved by the Dodgers’ fan noise and the Dodgers’ lineup attack.
“I’m just looking forward to throwing the first punch,” Dodgers manager Dave Roberts said before the game. “I’m expecting us to be ready for a fight.”
Shohei Ohtani celebrates after hitting a three-run home run in the second inning against the Padres in Game 1 of the NLDS on Saturday night.
(Robert Gauthier / Los Angeles Times)
They did, and they were.
Roberts added that he felt a payback vibe throughout the last week.
“I think there’s some intensity,” he said. “Some want to pay some people back and show how good we are. And I like that. I like that feeling that’s resonating in our clubhouse.”
On Saturday night that feeling resonated onto the field with one exception.
This is still a team with a starting pitching problem.
The game began in rotation controversy, the Dodgers switching gears late in the week and starting Yamamoto, the fragile, $325-million offseason investment who had pitched all of four games since June.
It was a terrible idea. It was first-guessed by many, including here, as a terrible idea. It was a classic case of the Dodgers’ renowned brain trust outsmarting themselves.
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Yamamoto supposedly recovered from a shoulder injury that cost him nearly three months this summer, but he had pitched more than four innings only once during his four-start comeback.
Their initial choice to start Game 1, Jack Flaherty, was pushed back to Game 2, with the thinking being that this way, both Flaherty and the fragile Yamamoto could be available for Game 5.
But who plans for Game 5 when the series hasn’t even started yet? Why would you want to hold back your best available starter to put Game 1 in the hands of a tender-shouldered pitcher who never has experienced a big-league October?
Yamamoto was awful for almost every one of his 60 pitches, giving up five runs on five hits with two walks and one strikeout and nobody fooled.
If this happened the past two postseasons, the Dodgers would have been cooked. Not this time. Not this October. Not with this offense. Not with this burn.
“Our guys were relentless all night,” Roberts said.
One win down, 10 wins to go.
More, more, more.