SAN DIEGO — The Dodgers keep saying the same thing about this series with the San Diego Padres.

“Yeah, it’s fun,” Clayton Kershaw said of the first two games between the Dodgers and San Diego Padres. “I think (Corey) Seager said it best, though. We’re just trying to win a series. We don’t really care about rivalries or who we’re playing. We’re just trying to win series.”

And that’s what should worry the Padres most.

It’s not possible to rip a team’s heart out and show it to them in April, but the Dodgers have come as close as you can, following up Friday’s extra-innings victory with a 2-0 win over the Padres Saturday night at Petco Park.

The Padres were left stunned, milling around in front of their dugout as a replay review confirmed what they saw but didn’t believe. Mookie Betts (a Gold Glove right fielder playing out of position in center field with Cody Bellinger injured) made an improbable, diving catch to end the game, laying out to grab Tommy Pham’s drive then rising to his knees, thumping his chest and howling into the sky.

“I mean, I just kind of blacked out,” Betts said moments later on SportsNet LA. “You’re just kind of in the moment, playing the game, I just knew that when the ball went up in the air I had to go catch it, and that’s what I did.”

With runners at second and third taking off with the pitch, Pham’s drive would have driven in the tying runs if Betts had not plucked it just short of the grass.

“Yeah, I did,” Dodgers manager Dave Roberts said when asked if he thought the game was headed for extra innings when Pham made contact. “I just got word that the catch probability (an analytic estimate) was 10 percent.

“Mookie has played a lot of innings in center field. But still with that being said, it takes an elite defender in center to make that play. A lot of things have got to line up — the jump on the baseball, the line to the baseball and secure the baseball. There’s just a handful of guys who could make that play. It just speaks to why he’s arguably the best all-around player in baseball.”

Kershaw flashed his own all-around game as well.

Hooked up in a scoreless pitcher’s duel with former teammate Yu Darvish, Kershaw worked an eight-pitch walk with two outs and the bases loaded in the fifth inning, forcing in the first run of the game.

Darvish had retired the first 14 Dodgers in order, five of the first seven on strikeouts, before a breaking pitch clipped Zach McKinstry’s foot with two outs in the fifth to end the perfect run. Luke Raley followed with the first — and only in his seven innings — hit off Darvish, a single to center field, and Austin Barnes drew a walk to load the bases.

That brought up Kershaw who has said his goal at the plate is just to be as “annoying” as possible. Darvish made it easy on him at first, missing with a pair of cutters to start the at-bat. Kershaw took a strike then fouled off three in a row with defensive swings aimed at doing nothing but extending the at-bat.

He took ball three high and outside then ball four off the plate.

“Just trying to be annoying, really,” Kershaw said. “I wasn’t going to get a hit off of him. He’s got too good of stuff. So it was trying to be a nuisance as much as you can, fouling off pitches and making him work a little bit.”

Kershaw was even better at his real job.

He had his good slider, using it to finish off each of his five strikeouts in the first three innings. He gave up just two hits in six scoreless innings. Since his loss on Opening Day in Colorado, Kershaw has allowed just one run in 19 innings with an 18-inning scoreless streak ongoing.

He also provided the nightly benches-clearing confrontation. With two outs in the fourth, Kershaw popped a 92-mph fastball past Jurickson Profar for strike three and headed for the dugout. But Profar had chopped awkwardly at the pitch as it passed him by and clipped Barnes’ glove in the process.

After a replay review, Profar was awarded first base on catcher’s interference. But first he and Kershaw exchanged verbal fire from across the diamond, Kershaw suggesting loudly that Profar was guilty of “a (expletive) swing” and Profar waving him off from first base with his own vulgarity.

“That’s a little scary,” Kershaw said. “I think Barnesy could have been seriously injured on that play. He basically swung straight down and backwards. I’m not saying it was intentional. But that was not a big-league swing right there.

“I asked the umpire if I could just hit the catcher’s glove every time. I’ve got a much better chance of doing that than hitting the ball.”

With their bullpen worn down by Friday’s marathon, Roberts turned to Victor Gonzalez to get the last two outs with the tying runs on base. Pham almost ruined that plan.

“That catch by Mookie was incredible,” Kershaw said.

“That play is really hard to make, coming almost across, not coming in or back. For him to be able to do it, I think it’s just another reason Mookie is the best because extra innings tonight for us would have been tough. That was huge.”

from Irvine Business Signs https://ift.tt/3amSH0j
via Irvine Sign Company

from Irvine Business Signs https://ift.tt/2OXdhNi
via Irvine Sign Company

from Irvine Business Signs https://ift.tt/3v1OkQo
via Irvine Sign Company

signsanaheim

See Full Bio