Padres drop close-fought series: 'One out away from a happy flight'

SAN DIEGO -- The 2023 edition of the Dodgers-Padres rivalry won't be settled in May. If anyone should know that, it's the Padres, who dropped all six of their regular-season series against the Dodgers last summer before besting them in October. There are five months left to settle the score.

But if this weekend's series was a tone-setter for the NL West in 2023, well, the Dodgers set it.

In a dramatic Sunday rubber match, Los Angeles rallied for a 5-2 victory in 10 innings at Petco Park. San Diego led 2-1 with two outs in the ninth when things began to unravel.

Or, as Xander Bogaerts put it: “One out away from a happy flight.”

Mookie Betts launched a game-tying homer off Padres closer Josh Hader -- tagging Hader with his first blown save of the season and the first home run he’s allowed in a save situation as a Padre.

An inning later, Michael Busch hit a go-ahead single off Brent Honeywell Jr., before James Outman launched a two-run blast, leaving no doubt. Fernando Tatis Jr., Manny Machado and Juan Soto went down 1-2-3 to end it.

“They’re really good baseball players,” Tatis said. “When you’re facing a team like that, anything can happen at any time.”

Anything, including the rare occurrence that is a Hader blown save. The left-hander retired the first two Dodgers he faced before Betts worked a 3-1 count. Afterward, Hader didn’t second-guess his decision to throw Betts a fifth fastball -- reasonable, considering how effective that pitch has been all season. He was more disappointed with the predicament he’d put himself in.

“You fall behind to a really good hitter like that, you don’t give yourself enough room for error,” Hader said. “At the end of the day, you can’t fall behind.”

Said manager Bob Melvin: “It’s going to happen sometimes. Hader’s been absolutely fantastic. He had one more out to get, and Mookie Betts is a tough customer.”

Indeed, the margins are razor thin. The Padres were one out from a statement series victory that would’ve moved them within one game of the Dodgers in the early NL West standings.

Then, Betts’ swing changed things. It’s only one series in May. But the Padres now head to Minnesota sitting one game above .500. They aren’t off to the start they expected (though they’ve had one of the sport’s toughest schedules, and played their first 20 games without Tatis while he served the remainder of his PED suspension).

“We’re still above .500,” Bogaerts said. “That’s not the baseball we want to play, but we started off pretty bad. … Sometimes, you lose tough games against a really good team. If we won this game today, everything would be different.”

The Padres jumped out to a 2-0 lead during a first inning in which Tatis, Machado and Bogaerts all doubled. Machado, who’d been off to a slow start, pounded out three hits and reached in seven of his 14 plate appearances this weekend, an undoubtedly positive sign.

Joe Musgrove, meanwhile, didn’t allow an earned run over five-plus innings, and -- with Melvin managing aggressively ahead of Monday’s off-day -- the Padres’ bullpen kept the Dodgers at bay until the ninth.

“It was good baseball, man, all around,” Musgrove said. “... It seemed like it all came down to one swing of the bat that separated the game. A good game. I liked the way that we played against these guys. Obviously, you want to come out on the winning side, but a lot of good things to take out of this series.”

Aside from, of course, the result. The Padres have now dropped 10 straight series against the Dodgers, dating to June 2021.

Regular-season series, that is. Since San Diego’s NLDS upset last season, things have shifted in this rivalry. The Padres also welcomed back Tatis this season, and they added Bogaerts to the mix.

“The intensity level has certainly been heightened the last couple of years,” said Dodgers manager Dave Roberts. “From 2020 to now, it has ramped up a lot and that’s good for all of us. It increases our level of intensity, focus and level of play.”

The Padres will get three more chances against the Dodgers this season, including a series next weekend in Los Angeles. They might get an October rematch, too.

So, yes, there’s plenty of time to atone. But in the immediate aftermath, that perspective didn’t necessarily quell the sting from a loss like this one.

“We would’ve loved to have taken the first series,” Melvin said. “Especially here at home. We had a chance to. We just couldn’t finish it off.”