2022 National League Division Series 1

2022 National League Division Series

San Diego Padres 89 - 73 in the NL	3 - 1 Series Summary	Los Angeles Dodgers 111 - 51 in the NL

Overview[edit]

The Teams[edit]

Managers: Padres: Bob Melvin | Dodgers: Dave Roberts

Padres

Dodgers

Umpires[edit]

Tripp Gibson, Chris Segal, Mark Carlson, John Tumpane, Lance Barksdale, Scott Barry

Series results[edit]

Game	Score	Date	Starters	Time (ET)
1	San Diego Padres 3 Los Angeles Dodgers 5	October 11	Mike Clevinger (0-1) Julio Urias (1-0)	9:37 pm
2	San Diego Padres 5 Los Angeles Dodgers 3	October 12	Yu Darvish (1-0) Clayton Kershaw (0-0)	8:37 pm
3	Los Angeles Dodgers 1 San Diego Padres 2	October 14	Tony Gonsolin (0-1) Blake Snell (1-0)	8:37 pm
4	Los Angeles Dodgers 3 San Diego Padres 5	October 15	Tyler Anderson (0-0) Joe Musgrove (0-0)	9:37 pm

Results[edit]

Game 1 @ Dodger Stadium[edit]

Team	1	2	3	4	5	6	7	8	9	R	H	E
Padres	0	0	0	0	3	0	0	0	0	3	7	1
Dodgers	2	0	3	0	0	0	0	0	x	5	6	0
WP: Julio Urias (1-0); LP: Mike Clevinger (0-1); SV: Chris Martin (1)
Home Runs: LA - Trea Turner (1); SD - Wil Myers (1)

Attendance: 52,407

The Dodgers got off to an early lead against the Padres in Game 1, then hung on to win, 5-3, getting over the absence of a titular closer for the time being at least. In last year's postseason, the Dodgers had shot themselves in the foot by overthinking their usage of starting pitchers, refusing to simply go with the studs they had, and as a result tying themselves into knots. After another dominating regular season this year, Dodger fans were afraid management would overthink this again, but at least for now, they decided on the obvious choice, Julio Urias, as their first starter, ignoring the bizarre notion that circulated in some circles that somehow he was not a "true" ace in spite of leading the National League in wins in 2021 and ERA this year. For the Padres, after needing to use their top three starters to get past the New York Mets in the Wild Card Series, tabbing Mike Clevinger was not really a choice but a necessity even if he was coming off a so-so season one year after Tommy John surgery.

In any case, the Dodgers jumped all over Clevinger. Their second batter, Trea Turner, hit a solo homer to left field to open the scoring in the bottom of the 1st, and after a second out, Will Smith doubled and Max Muncy singled to double the lead to 2-0. Justin Turner then drew a walk before Gavin Lux ended things by lining out to center. After a quiet 2nd inning, Trea Turner led off the 3rd with a double then Smith doubled again with one out to make it 3-0. After a walk to Muncy, Justin Turner struck out, but Lux drove in the stake deeper with a timely double to right, scoring Muncy, which ended Clevinger's short outing. Steven Wilson came in but he walked Trayce Thompson to load the bases and 1B Wil Myers misplayed a grounder by Cody Bellinger, allowing a fifth run to score. The inning finally ended when Mookie Betts flied out to center, but the Dodgers now had a commanding lead. The rest of the game would be spent nursing it to the finish line.

Urias had allowed but one hit in the first three innings, a two-out double to Austin Nola in the 3rd and continued with a perfect 4th. He then suddenly lost his mojo in the 5th. Myers partly redeemed his error by homering on a ball that just cleared the fence in left-center, and Jake Cronenworth and Ha-Seong Kim followed with a single and double, respectively. A second run scored on a ground out by Trent Grisham and a third on a sacrifice fly by Nola. Urias got another fly ball to end the inning, but surprisingly the 5-3 score would hold for the remainder of the game. Four Padres relievers kept the Dodgers hitless over their last five turns at bat, while for the Dodgers, who had demoted their closer, Craig Kimbrel, in September, and then left him off the postseason roster, Evan Phillips started the parade of relievers in the 6th. And it was the Padres who would get the few remaining scoring chances in this game. Their first two batters in the 6th, Juan Soto and Manny Machado, both reached on a walk and a single, respectively, but Phillips doused that fire with a strikeout and a double play grounder. Alex Vesia replaced Phillips in the 7th but allowed only a two-out single to Grisham. In the 8th, he got two more outs before Brusdar Graterol finished things off and in the 9th, Chris Martin was summoned. He got two ground ball outs before Cronenworth singled, but Kim, representing the potential tying run, flied out to Thompson in right field to end the game. The Dodgers bullpen had held.

Game 2 @ Dodger Stadium[edit]

Team	1	2	3	4	5	6	7	8	9	R	H	E
Padres	1	0	2	0	0	1	0	1	0	5	9	0
Dodgers	1	1	1	0	0	0	0	0	0	3	11	1
WP: Yu Darvish (1-0); LP: Brusdar Graterol (0-1); SV: Josh Hader (1)
Home Runs: SD - Manny Machado (1), Jake Cronenworth (1); LA - Freddie Freeman (1), Max Muncy (1), Trea Turner (2)

Attendance: 53,122

In Game 2, Padres starter Yu Darvish was returning to the scene of the crime, as it were, as it was in Dodger Stadium that he had had one of the worst starts of his career to lose Game 7 of the 2017 World Series to the Houston Astros during his brief time as a member of the Dodgers. In the interim, however, he had had plenty of other opportunities to pitch here with the Chicago Cubs and now the Padres, so it was not as if the nightmarish outing was fresh in his mind. He did not have one of his best nights, but he did enough to end up the winner in a 5-3 game that tied the series at one win apiece. His opponent was Clayton Kershaw, who had also had plenty of disappointing postseason outings during an otherwise outstanding career, but who had seemingly put those gremlins to bed after some excellent performances during the Dodgers' run to a World Series title in 2020.

This was a game in which the long ball was a major actor: it started in the 1st inning when Manny Machado hit a solo homer off Kershaw with two outs, only to be immediately matched by Freddie Freeman, who pulled the exact same trick against Darvish. In the 2nd, the Padres got singles from Wil Myers and Jurickson Profar after one out, and both advanced 90 feet on a wild pitch, but they were stranded there when Kershaw struck out Trent Grisham and Austin Nola. The Dodgers then took the lead when Max Muncy led off the bottom of the inning with a homer. Justin Turner followed with a single, but Darvish regrouped, striking out the next three batters. In the 3rd, it was Ha-seong Kim and Juan Soto who hit back-to-back singles, this time with nobody out, and Machado had another big hit, a double that tied the score and put Soto on third base. After a first out, Soto scored the go-ahead run on a ground out by Jake Cronenworth for another Padres lead, 3-2. That turned out to be short-lived as well, as with one out, Trea Turner made it three long balls in three innings for the Dodgers, with his second homer of the series.

After these early fireworks, the game remained tied at 3-3 for the next two innings, although Darvish had to work hard to strand a couple runners in the 4th, then was helped when Mookie Betts, who led off the 5th with a single, was caught stealing at second base. Kershaw gave way to Brusdar Graterol after five innings and the Padres immediately went to work on him as Brandon Drury led off with a single. He was forced out by Cronenworth. Myers then looked as if he had hit into either another force out, or even a possible inning-ending double play, with a grounder to SS Trea Turner, but the ball was not fielded cleanly and both runners were safe on the error. Profar followed with a single to give the Padres a 4-3 lead, while Myers advanced to third. Grisham then hit a ball back to Graterol, but the Dodgers were able to tag out Myers at home to save a run, and the inning ended when Nola flied out to center. The Dodgers immediately got to work on erasing that third lead when Muncy and Will Smith led off the bottom of the 6th with back-to-back singles, chasing Darvish in favor of Robert Suarez. In a tense situation, Suarez struck out Justin Turner, then got Gavin Lux to hit into a double play, and the 4-3 lead still held. Yency Almonte then struck out the side for the Dodgers in the top of the 7th, while Cody Bellinger singled and Betts doubled off Suraez with one out, but once again, the Dodgers were unable to push the tying run across the plate. Trea Turner hit a grounder straight at Machado on which the runners could not advance, and after an intentional walk to Freeman to load the bases, Smith lined out to center to end the inning. Cronenworth finally gave the Padres a bit of breathing room in the 8th when he hit a one-out homer off Blake Treinen, making the lead 5-3. Treinen then loaded the bases with two outs on a walk, a stolen base, and intentional walk and an unsuccessful attempted force out, but got Kim to pop up to first base to end the inning.

The Padres needed to get six more outs, and Bob Melvin turned to Nick Martinez. He got two outs before giving up a single to Lux, which was Melvin's cue to bring in closer Josh Hader. Hader promptly walked Trayce Thompson on a full count, but Austin Barnes, pinch-hitting for Bellinger, flew out to center to end another tense inning. While this was going on, in a bit of a surreal moment, a goose landed in the outfield at Dodger Stadium and did not want to move, until being removed by personnel during the change of innings. In the top of the 9th, it was Tommy Kahnle who struck out the side for L.A., after which Hader came back out to attempt to close out the win. He got two outs before Freeman hit a double, but on a full count, Smith flew out to right field to end the game.

Game 3 @ Petco Park[edit]

Team	1	2	3	4	5	6	7	8	9	R	H	E
Dodgers	0	0	0	0	1	0	0	0	0	1	6	0
Padres	1	0	0	1	0	0	0	0	x	2	7	0
WP: Blake Snell (1-0); LP: Tony Gonsolin (0-1); SV: Josh Hader (2)
Home Runs: SD - Trent Grisham (1)

Attendance: 45,137

In the first home postseason game for the Padres since 2006, Petco Park was packed to welcome its heroes, and they did not disappoint, defeating the Dodgers, 2-1, to take the lead in the series. Originally, the Dodgers had penciled in Tyler Anderson as the starting pitcher, but they changed their mind, instead delegating Tony Gonsolin. On paper, this should not have been controversial: both were All-Stars, with records of 16-1 for Gonsolin and 15-5 for Anderson, both with very good ERAs, but the issue was that Gonsolin had missed a month of action and made just one appearance since, so it was clear he wouldn't be able to pitch for long. But he ended up pitching about as long as an opener, and while he was in trouble for his entire stint, he gave up just one run. Meanwhile, the Dodgers were never able to generate any offense against Padres' pitching, so it's not clear that other scenarios would have led to a different outcome. His opponent, Blake Snell, was coming off a rough outing in the Wild Card Series and had of course been at the center of one of the most controversial managerial decisions of recent years in another start against the Dodgers, namely when Kevin Cash pulled him out of a dominating start in Game 6 of the 2020 World Series, back when he was a member of the Tampa Bay Rays.

In this game, Snell gave up a lead-off single to Mookie Betts, and he advanced to second base on a wild pitch, but Snell then struck out the side even if his command was not perfect. In the bottom of the inning, Gonsolin struggled from the get-go as Juan Soto doubled with one out, after which he walked Manny Machado. Josh Bell popped up on an infield fly, but Jake Cronenworth hit a single to center to open the score. Machado advanced to third, and with Wil Myers at bat, Gonsolin threw a pitch in the dirt which allowed Cronenworth to take second, although Machado had to stay put at third. Gonsolin finally struck out Myers to end the inning, but by then he had expended a lot of pitches, and Andrew Heaney had started warming up in the bullpen. Snell retired the Dodgers in order in the 2nd, and Gonsolin returned for the 2nd inning, which was a bit surprising given Heaney was warmed up by then, and Gonsolin had not shown much in his first inning. And indeed, the Padres went right back to attacking him as Trent Grisham hit a one-out single, followed by a drive to the left field wall by Austin Nola. Grisham should probably have scored had he been running all out, but he hesitated around second and stopped at third base. This is when Dave Roberts finally acknowledged what was evident, and replaced his ineffective starter. Heaney was coming into a very tough situation, and the Padres decided to up the pressure by calling on Jurickson Profar to lay down a squeeze bunt on his first pitch. It did not work, as the ball hit Profar's bat, then bounced on the plate and was immediately picked up by C Austin Barnes. Profar had not run and was tagged out easily, Grisham stayed put a third base, but Nola advanced to second, so the play was ruled a sacrifice hit. It gave Heaney some breathing room, and he then got Soto to pop up, escaping what could have been a fatal inning.

In the 3rd, it was the Dodgers' turn to ramp up the pressure, as the inning started with a walk to Trayce Thompson and a single by Barnes. But Snell got Betts to line out sharply to Machado at third, and Thompson had to dive back to second to avoid being doubled off. Snell then struck out Trea Turner, but wanted nothing to do with Freddie Freeman, walking him on five pitches without giving him anything good to hit. Will Smith had a chance to put the Dodgers in the lead, but he popped up to 1B Myers, and the Dodgers were even more deflated. The Padres stranded a couple more baserunners in the 3rd, then added a second run when Grisham led off the bottom of the 4th with a long ball against Heaney, already his third of the postseason. They stranded a couple more baserunners that inning, and could easily have put the game completely out of hand by that point with a couple of opportunistic base knocks. The Dodgers finally got on the board in the 5th when Thompson and Barnes again started an inning by both getting on base, in this case with a single followed by a double, but the top of the order once again could not do serious damage. Betts did hit a sacrifice fly, but Trea Turner hit a pop-up, followed by a ground ball by Freeman and one run was all they got. Yency Almonte replaced Heaney with one out in the 5th as the Padres went down in order for the first time, and in the 6th, Snell gave way to Nick Martinez after a one-out double by Max Muncy. But once again, the big hit did not come, as Martinez retired Justin Turner and Chris Taylor to end the inning. The Padres stranded two more runners in the 6th, as the Dodgers used two more relievers, Alex Vesia and Evan Phillips, in maintaining thir deficit at just one run.

The rest of the game went exactly according to script for the Padres. Luis Garcia retired the Dodgers in order in the 7th, and Robert Suarez allowed only a single in the 8th, setting the table for closer Josh Hader. The Padres did not generate another baserunner after the 6th inning, but by then they were in nailing down the game mood, not adding to the lead. It was a bit of a risky approach, given that Hader had been unpredictable at times during the season, but it was vintage Hader who showed up for the 9th, getting Justin Turner to pop up before striking out Taylor and Thompson. The Padres were now one win away from pulling off a massive upset.

Game 4 @ Petco Park[edit]

Team	1	2	3	4	5	6	7	8	9	R	H	E
Dodgers	0	0	2	0	0	0	1	0	0	3	7	0
Padres	0	0	0	0	0	0	5	0	x	5	9	0
WP: Tim Hill (1-0); LP: Yency Almonte (0-1); SV: Josh Hader (3)
Home Runs: none

Attendance: 45,139

The upset that just about no one saw coming happened in Game 4 as the Padres once again defeated the Dodgers at Petco Park to turn L.A.'s record-setting 111-win season into a hazy memory, scoring all of their runs in the 7th inning in a 5-3 win. On the mound, the Dodgers had turned to Tyler Anderson, who had controversially been moved back from his expected Game 3 start, and who showed everyone that his dream season had not been a fluke, tossing five scoreless innings of two-hit ball to put his team in a great position to win. His opponent was Joe Musgrove, who had been dominant in a clutch Game 3 start in the Wild Card Series that eliminated the New York Mets. He made a quality start, but was not quite as unhittable as he had been a few days before, giving up a pair of runs on six hits while striking out eight over six innings. In most circumstances, this would have resulted in a win, but in the case of this game, it was just good enough to keep the Padres within striking distance.

Los Angeles scored both of its runs against Musgrove in the 3rd inning, the result of a walk to Mookie Betts, and back-to-back doubles by Trea Turner and Freddie Freeman. That lead stayed unchanged until the 7th, as both starting pitchers were very good. In the 6th, Chris Martin took over for Anderson and delivered another scoreless inning in spite of a pair of singles, then in the 7th, with Musgrove gone, the Dodgers took advantage of some wildness by Steven Wilson to score a third run. Betts drew a lead -off walk, advanced 90 feet on a wild pitch then moved to third when Trea Turner bunted for single. Wilson then hit Freeman with a pitch to load the bases with no one out and the Dodgers had a chance to put the game away, but ended up with only a sacrifice fly by Will Smith, after which Tim Hill replaced Wilson and struck out Max Muncy before getting Justin Turner to ground out.

The one Achilles' Heel about this great Dodgers team was always the bullpen. They had basically dismissed closer Craig Kimbrel late in the season, and while they had a number of competent relievers, they had not had time to redefine their roles (contrary to the Padres), so that in a game like today's when they needed to hold a lead over several innings there was a measure of uncertainty about who would be called upon to do what. And boy, did the Padres take advantage of that weakness. Tommy Kahnle got the call at the start of the 7th inning and immediately walked Jurickson Profar. Trent Grisham and Austin Nola, the Padres' peskiest hitters all postseason, followed with back-to-back singles, the second pushing across a first run. Dave Roberts replaced Kahnle with Yency Almonte, but he allowed a double to Ha-Seong Kim, driving in another run. The go-ahead run was now in scoring position, but first Juan Soto tied the game with another single. Almonte finally recorded an out when he struck out Manny Machado and then got Brandon Drury to pop up. And this is where the uncertainty again came calling, as Roberts decided to try another reliever even though Almonte seemed to have found his footing. Alex Vesia was summoned from the bullpen and Soto immediately surprised him by stealing second base. Jake Cronenworth, who had had key hits in the previous two Padres wins, then did it again, his single to center scoring both runners as the Padres took the lead for the first time, 5-3. Vesia walked Wil Myers before finally striking out Profar, who had started the whole debacle, to end an inning that had been an absolute nightmare for the Dodgers.

Contrary to the Dodgers, the Padres had a clear plan about what to do in case of a lead late in the game, and executed it to perfection. Robert Suarez came out to pitch and, as he had made a habit of late, pitched a perfect inning as a set-up man. It was now time for Josh Hader, whose confidence was up again after a few solid outings. He came out throwing gas, and for the second straight game, struck out the side in order, with his victims being the Dodgers' three most dangerous hitters to put an exclamation mark on his outing: down went Betts, Trea Turner and Freeman, and the Padres had achieved the seemingly impossible, reaching the NLCS for the first time this century.