When it comes to Padres and Dodgers, the script has finally flipped
This weekend showed that the San Diego Padres are no longer the little brother of the Los Angeles Dodgers. The big, bad Dodgers are also not the “daddy” of their Interstate-5 rivals, as David Ortiz infamously stated after Game 1 of the NLDS.
None of those talking points mean anything after the 111-win Dodgers lost three of four games to the Padres and saw their season come to an end on a damp night in San Diego on Saturday. We said the Dodgers got just what they wanted when the Padres knocked off the New York Mets in the Wild Card round. Recent history, including a 14-5 mark against San Diego this season, indicated that the Dodgers would be moving on. Instead, they’re just moving things out of their clubhouse and getting ready for the offseason.
Padres flipped the script on the Dodgers in the NLDS
With the Atlanta Braves knocked out by the Philadelphia Phillies on the other side of the bracket, the NLCS shapes up to be a matchup of the five and six seeds, with San Diego now getting home-field advantage with a trip to the World Series on the line. It’s a scenario few saw coming, but it also gives rise to the fact that the teams who had momentum in the Wild Card round kept it over the teams with the first-round byes (at least on the National League side).
Up 3-0 heading into the bottom of the seventh, Los Angeles had a 91 percent win probability per BaseballReference.com. It looked like another heartbreak coming at Petco Park at the hands of the Dodgers. Instead, it turned into a five-run frame from San Diego that would lower that Dodgers percentage to 12 percent and pull all of the momentum into the Padres dugout.
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San Diego flipped the script in that inning just like they did on the entire conversation surrounding their rivalry with Los Angeles for the near future.