-
Alden Gonzalez, ESPN Staff Writer
LOS ANGELES — Manny Machado settled back into first base at Dodger Stadium after the seventh inning Sunday, rallying his San Diego Padres teammates as best he could and urging them to refocus. It’s a necessary reminder. The previous two rounds had seen superstar Fernando Tatis Jr. get plunked, in Machado’s mind, on purpose. He has seen Machado verbally spar with Los Angeles Dodgers starter Jack Flaherty, at one point apparently challenging each other to a postgame fight. And they saw fans throwing baseballs and beer cans in the direction of Jurickson Profar and Tatis, respectively, triggering a nine-minute delay and more escalating tension than had heated the League Division Series Series.
“It’s just a reminder of who we really are as a group,” Tatis said of the meeting, “and how crazy we can make a place to be crazy.”
The Padres followed by homering four additional times, turning a nail-biter into a laugher to take Game 2 of the NLDS by a 10-2 score and even this best-of-five series at a game apiece.
“It’s a hostile environment,” Padres manager Mike Shildt said. “What I got out of it was a bunch of guys who appeared in front of the big crowd, the crowd was angry with the things that were thrown at them and said, ‘We will talk to our players. We will not go back. Down — we will raise our game, we’ll be together and we’ll take care of business.'”
The dispute between Profar and Dodger Stadium left field fans began playfully. Mookie Betts lifted a deep fly ball in the bottom of the first that seemed headed for the tying home run, except Profar reached into the crowd and took it away. Profar was thrilled with what he considered the biggest hit of his career, following fans close enough that Betts was halfway to third base before everyone realized it wasn’t a homer. Profar does not apologize.
“That’s one of my wishes — I want to rob a homer,” he said. “And I did it in a playoff game.”
Six innings later, as Yu Darvish was getting ready to start the bottom of the seventh while holding a 4-1 lead, a fan threw a baseball in Profar’s direction. As he approaches the umpire about the incident, another baseball rolls nearby, making Profar even more excited as he gathers with the umpire’s crew in shallow left field. Shildt joined him, screaming in the direction of the fans in left field. Soon, all of the Padres’ starting position players gathered.
“We have to stick together in times like that as a team,” Tatis said. “And our group, we obviously stay together. And we saw our son Profar take the ball thrown at him. He has the right to be mad, but at the end of the day, we know we’re on a mission.”
Nearly two dozen security guards lined the Dodger Stadium foul line as players began to reposition themselves on defense. Then three beer cans landed on the right-field danger track near Tatis, who had spent most of the night bantering with fans who screamed obscenities in his direction — especially after he made a leaping catch of Freddie Freeman’s line drive in the fourth. Another flask of beer landed in the Padres bullpen nearby.
“I’ve seen over a thousand games here — over a thousand games in this ballpark,” Dodgers manager Dave Roberts said. “And I’ve never seen anything like it.”
Profar claimed fans also wanted to throw objects onto the field in Game 1, before the Dodgers took the lead and won.
Tatis, who was shown wagging his tongue at fans from the dugout and taunting them with fake tears from right field, seemed to be the most disturbed of his teammates.
“People,” he said, “it’s definitely wild there. But at the same time, it’s a good environment for baseball, even if people are a little bit exaggerated with their emotions. But it’s great. Today, it’s a show, and we have to enjoy every moment .”
Tatis homered twice, in the first and ninth innings, and is now 9-for-14 in the first four postseason games. In between the homers, while leading off the sixth inning, Flaherty ran an 0-1 sinker and put him in left field. Flaherty quickly apologized, but Tatis never looked in his direction, keeping his eyes straight ahead as he walked toward first base. Tatis later said he didn’t believe Flaherty threw him on purpose, because it was so close in the game. Machado disagreed.
“If you can’t get him out, don’t beat him, okay?” Machado said. “They’ve got the best player in the game, right? (Shohei) Ohtani? We’re not trying to hit Ohtani. We’re trying to get him out. Don’t go out there and try to hit Tati.”
Flaherty said the concept of hitting Tatis in that situation — with the Dodgers trailing by just three runs, nobody out and he had retired seven consecutive batters — “didn’t make sense.”
“I know what it’s like,” Flaherty said. “That’s the way of the game. You think I’m going to do that down 3-1 with 3-4-5 coming up? I know, emotions run high. Guys, I know how it looks … But it’s not a situation to hit people, I just won’t make the same mistake he did in the first inning and throw it up the middle.
After Tatis reached first base, Profar exchanged words with Dodgers catcher Will Smith, who earlier this season called him an “irrelevant” member of the Padres’ lineup. The next batter, Machado, struck out swinging, and Flaherty yelled at him, telling him to “sit the f— down.” Machado didn’t seem to hear Flaherty until he approached and saw his teammates yelling toward the field. Flaherty said he was “really fired up.”
“Competition, right?” Machado said with a smile. “It happens between the lines. People just go back and forth. They’re competing for the ball club, and I’m trying to get a big hit for my team.”
But Flaherty and Machado kept going for the next half-inning, with Flaherty hollering from the fence and Machado backing down the left field side. Flaherty said Machado threw the baseball into the Dodgers dugout. Machado said that he always throws baseballs into the dugout for the ball boys or girls to catch before the start of the half inning, either to his own dugout or the opposing team’s.
Said Flaherty: “I’m not going to react if it’s just a toss.”
“Nobody saw it, but that’s why the referee was with him,” added Flaherty. “Everyone saw the end, it was me and him, but I wasn’t there to talk to him. I was there to sit in the dugout with my friends. I happened to be the one who was caught talking to him.”
In the end, all that matters is that the Padres win the game they need — and they’ll be playing again at home, in front of what promises to be a packed house at San Diego’s Petco Park.
The tension will only increase.
“It’s great,” Machado said, “to be playing postseason baseball.”
