Friday’s game lasted five hours, included 12 innings and included 17 pitchers.
Saturday’s game comes down to a centimeter.
It was virtually the distance between Petco Park’s outdoor grass and the baseball bulging out of Mookie Betts’ glove, just safe enough to place another exclamation point on an exciting game between the Los Angeles Dodgers and the San Diego Padres.
It was the end of the ninth, there were two out, the Dodgers were led under two, the Padres had two runners in the points standings, and both teams followed through another April game with the nail-biting intensity of October. Betts, who played center field for the injured Cody Bellinger, broke on his left, ran seven steps and took himself in the direction of Tommy Pham’s sinking line drive. If it falls, the game is at least level. Give Pham the go, maybe the Padres win will win on a home track inside the park.
Betts secured it on the heel of his glove and turned it around in a game with a 10% catch in the Dodgers victory 2-0. He lifted himself to both knees, tapped three times on his chest and roared to a crowd that had mostly become quiet. Moments later, in a field interview with the Dodgers broadcasting community, Betts said he had ‘kind of eclipse’.
0:35
Mookie Betts dives to end the game and secure the Dodgers victory over the Padres.
It was such a series.
“It’s different,” Padr’s starter Yu Darvish, who let just one run through seven dominant innings, told his interpreter. “I saw it yesterday, too.”
Friday’s frenzy played out in Saturday’s classic duel between Darvish and Clayton Kershaw, who delivered just one run through the first eight overs – on a basic step by Kershaw, of all people – and ended with brilliant defense, as opposed to the sloppiness of 24 hours earlier.
The Dodgers have won eight in a row, and still remain the lead in the winning percentage, winning 13 of their first 15 games for the second time in the last 100 years.
They exalted themselves to fit the intensity of a Padres team, so conspicuously eager to push them off the seat at the top of the National League West, but they did not necessarily force it. They reassured their bad players, guarded against using their relief too much and talked about the series with the softness one might expect for baseball in the early season, even though the games feel nothing like it.
“It’s April,” said Justin Turner, Dodgers’ third baseman. “The thing about this club, and our team for the last few years, is that we talk a lot about taking it one game at a time and worrying about today and doing everything in our power to win a game today. win, and we do not have to worry about what happened yesterday and do not look forward to what will come tomorrow.I think a lot of teams talk about it, but this team is one of the best groups I have ever had to actually get it out and not let the moment get too big. ‘
Kershaw has regularly played catch with Darvish during the last three months of the 2017 season, but he has never faced him – you know as a hit – before Saturday. He retired in four places in his first plate appearance, ending up with a 2-2 score in his second place. It was the fifth innings, the base was loaded with two outfielders, Darvish was three hits away from a developing perfect game – and so began one of the biggest series in Kershaw’s attacking career, a collection of four places that the intensity, embodied unpredictability. and pure arbitrariness of this emerging rivalry.
Slide out over the plate, bouncing dirty.
Cutter away low and away, faulty tilt.
Cut up and away, taken for a ball.
Cut slightly away, taken for a ball.
Kershaw took a walk – on a perfectly placed cutter that jutted just off the edge of the strike area – to make a turn, just the second time in a fourteen-year league career. Until Turner unleashed a solo homer in the first ninth position, it was the only run of the match. In the end, that was also the difference.
“Just trying to be annoying, really,” Kershaw says of his approach. “I did not get a hit from him, he has too good a thing. It’s just trying to be me. ‘
The previous half innings, Kershaw yelled at Jurickson Profar – “This is a bulls — swing!” he barked – because he swung so late that he caught his bat on Austin Barnes’ glove and got the first base on the catcher’s intervention. Kershaw later complained that Profar “swung straight down and backwards” and said it was “not a big league swing”.
Two innings later, Trent Grisham found himself on second base, but the defense behind him did not read accurately and late on Manny Machado’s sharp foundation broke through the inside and advanced only 90 feet. The next batter, Wil Myers, hit a 106km / h foundation that slid down the hill and ended up in Chris Taylor’s glove for a double play that ended.
Kershaw, who contributed six pointless frames and failed to allow a run in 18 consecutive innings, could not help but smile when he returned to the dugout.
Myers looks stunned.