SAN DIEGO — Mookie Betts hit a home run for the second night in a row, Shohei Ohtani hit an RBI hit and the Los Angeles Dodgers defeated Dylan Cease and the San Diego Padres 8-0 on Wednesday night in a tense National League division. They won a decisive victory in the fifth game of the series.
Will Smith and Gavin Lux each hit two-run home runs for the Dodgers, who ended their losing streak at two and will return home for the next matchup between the NL West rivals on Friday night. .
“We've got a lot of grinders, a lot of fighters,” Betts said after the Dodgers' biggest shutout win in postseason history. “I knew it wasn't going to be easy.”
The Padres won 10-2 in Game 2 at Dodger Stadium on Sunday night, with anger flaring on the field and in the stands.
The winner will have home-field advantage in the National League Championship Series against the New York Mets, who eliminated the Philadelphia Phillies in the National League.
“I'm proud. … Your desires have to exceed their desires,” Dodgers manager Dave Roberts said. “Seeing the players overcome what they've been through and respond the way they've been doing makes me look forward to Game 5.”
Opening pitcher Ryan Brazier and his seven fellow relief pitchers performed well in the Dodgers' bullpen game, holding the Padres to seven hits and extending their scoreless streak to 15 innings. Evan Phillips, who won the game, retired Jurickson Profar, Manny Machado, and Jackson Merrill with five pitches in the sixth inning.
“Overall the guys were efficient and knew they had to get up and down and potentially run a little longer,” Roberts said. “The efficiency in the strike zone was huge and gave us options heading into Game 5.”
The Dodgers silenced a record crowd of 47,773 at Petco Park, who had expected San Diego to eliminate Los Angeles in the NLDS for the first time in three seasons.
With All-Star first baseman Freddie Freeman out with a nasty right ankle sprain, Betts and Ohtani, who starred in their first seasons with the Dodgers, needed to produce to keep L.A.'s season alive.
They accomplished just that, with Betts scoring two runs on two hits and Ohtani scoring one run and reaching base three times.
With the Dodgers leading 5-0, the Japanese superstar tried to score from second base in the fourth inning when Teoscar Hernandez's single missed third baseman Machado's glove and hit umpire Mark Ripperger, causing him to be ejected.
Machado circled the umpire, grabbed the ball and fired a shot to catcher Kyle Higashioka, giving Ohtani his third out.
The Padres' gamble to make him the starter after a short rest backfired. He grounded out Ohtani to start the game before Betts homered on a full-count pitch.
The stoppage was in the second inning, with one out and two runners on, and when he got two outs, Otani's 38th pitch, a timely shot over the right field, was followed up.
“I liked the way the ball came out of my hands, and I didn't feel like I took too many shots to my feet. I felt like I did that. I felt good there,” Cease said. . Regarding the opening chorus, “It all depended on the result, but unfortunately it didn't turn out that way today.''
Betts hit an RBI hit on Brian Howing's first pitch for a 3-0 lead, silencing the towel-waving crowd.
This time, Betts had no doubts about the home run. He hit a 3-2 pitch over the left-center field fence and into the Padres' bullpen, raising his right index finger as he took the first round, and Ohtani celebrated by raising his arms in the dugout.
On Tuesday night, Betts hit a home run to left, but Jurickson Profar thought he had stolen another base and turned toward the dugout before his teammates or even Padres starting pitcher Michael King could signal it was a home run.
Profar robbed Betts of a home run Sunday night at Dodger Stadium and trolled the fans.
The game was stopped for 12 minutes because fans threw baseballs at Profar and threw trash into the outfield.
Betts hit a home run Tuesday night, breaking a 22-for-22 playoff drought.
“I'm not trying to win games for us, and we have a lot of players that can win games,” Betts said. “I just want to play my role within the team. And that's all I've been focused on.”
Ohtani hit a game-tying three-run homer against the Css on Saturday night in the slugger's long-awaited playoff debut, giving them a 7-5 victory. Ohtani hit 54 home runs and stole 59 bases this season, becoming the first member of a 50-50 club.
In the third inning, Max Muncy hit a leadoff double, and Smith hit a ball from Hoing straight into the eye of the batter in center field for a 5-0 lead. The Dodgers added another run in the seventh inning on Tommy Edman's sacrifice fly and Lux's Wandy Peralta's two-run homer to right.
The Dodgers held slugger Fernando Tatis Jr. in the yard after hitting three home runs in the first three games, including two Sunday night, and four this postseason overall. Brazier struck out Tatis in the first inning, his first strikeout in six playoff games.
“They were executed en masse tonight, and it's a credit to them,” Tatis said. “We were rolling as an offense. But we had a few innings where it wasn't in our favor. We need to get a lot better with our approach at the plate. … We just got better at the plate as a group.” ”
