The Padres, and Dodgers for that matter, learned something about rookie starter MacKenzie Gore on Sunday. Because of it, Gore undoubtedly learned a whole lot about himself.
There's toughness. There's fight. There's a pool of resiliency, forged in a situation and setting only a game like Sunday's can provide, that revealed the specialness the Padres banked on with the 23-year-old along his bumpy road to proving he belongs.
Gore muscled his way out of a bases-loaded, first-inning jam after allowing back-to-back doubles to Mookie Betts and Trea Turner six pitches in to steady things in a 4-2 win that staunched serious series bleeding at Dodger Stadium.
He could have quaked or caved. He did neither.
"These type of things make you tougher and make you better as a younger player," Padres manager Bob Melvin said. "When you're carving up and you're going through the lineups easily, it's one thing. But when you have to fight and do things a little bit differently, (it) makes you a better pitcher and makes it a little tougher down the road."
When Betts and Turner led off the game with doubles to the same mailing address in left for a run, the floodgates did not open. When a miscommunicated infield pop-up between Gore, Eric Hosmer and Manny Machado off the bat of Turner found mound rather than mitt in the second, the wheels stayed attached on the wagon.
When the pitches piled up, including 29 in the first inning alone, the white flag remained benched.
"You step off (the mound) and you go, all right, we need to figure out how to keep them right here," said Gore, who stayed on his legs through 5 2/3 innings by allowing just three more hits through 100 pitches. "You need to step off, take a deep breath."
Plays like Jurickson Profar rushing in to trim time and distance off freddie Freeman's liner to left and gun down Betts at the plate in the fourth helped, as much as rookie Jose Azocar being cut down at home in the third hurt.
No matter how many times the roller coaster jarred, though, Gore found center.
It became the gutsiest performance of a career only beginning to blossom, given the team he faced, the place they played and the peril he routinely sidestepped. What began as almost certain disaster turned into the type of outing — and response — that signals there's as much stuff between the ears as in the arm.
"We had Gore on the ropes the first two innings, high pitch count," Dodgers manager Dave Roberts said. "To his credit, he found a way to get into the sixth inning. We find a way to run him or chase him earlier, it might have been a different game.
"But he beared down."
In the first career start against the Dodgers, Gore lined up against Hall-bound Clayton Kershaw. The first hitter he faced was a former AL MVP in Betts. Two spots later, the former NL MVP Freeman dug in. In between waited current NL MVP contender Turner.
Welcome to the Dodgers series, with an 0-3 series hole freshly dug and the home team owning a nine-game win streak over them outside of Petco Park.
Welcome, as well, to a chance to flash what's inside the hat and uniform. Gore navigated a road full of nails while, somehow, remarkably, avoiding game-sinking flat tires.
"He struggled early, but it showed everybody something that he came back and ended up pitching deeper into the game than probably anybody expected," Kershaw said. "He did a great job, as far as that's concerned.
"Kind of just shows mental fortitude, a little bit. It's impressive for a young guy to kind of grind through the first couple innings and get through."
Kershaw is the glorious, accomplished and legacy-assured present. Gore, the Padres hope, is the future. The Dodgers veteran has twice as many All-Star appearances as Gore had wins coming in.
In 15 seasons, Kershaw had struck out 2,729 on the way to 190 wins. Gore has thrown in 13 games, compared with the 389 by his counterpart, who has faced the Padres 45 times alone.
As a rookie in 2008, when Gore was 8, Kershaw finished 5-5 with a 4.62 ERA and 1.495 total for walks and hits per innings pitched. Gore is 4-3 with a 3.18 ERA and WHIP of 1.331 when he walked to the mound Sunday.
The beginning of something? Someone thinks so.
"I'm sure we'll get to face him a lot in his career," Dodgers third baseman Justin Turner said.
Gore's final totals — including four walks against three strikeouts — hardly count as being flashy, but this was about something bigger than numbers. He never let the Dodgers, with the second-highest run differential in baseball, breach the castle gates.
He held serve, inning by inning, until the offense arrived in the ninth inning.
"We stayed in the game and then we landed a big punch at the end," Gore said.
They stayed in the game, because Gore kept them there. Doing that in a series on life support against the division leader in front of 42,633 screaming themselves hoarse offered the truest of tests.
A test, many learned, Gore is built and wired to face.
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