SAN DIEGO — The day began with promise and a downtown that was buzzing.
The night was damp and quiet.
And then, bedlam.
And then, more of it. And a continued march toward possible history.
The San Diego Padres sent their downtown ballpark and all of their city into a frenzy with a five-run seventh inning Saturday night that propelled them to a 5-3 victory over the hated Los Angeles Dodgers that clinched a trip to the National League Championship Series.
A third consecutive victory in the best-of-five NL Division Series made all the losing to the team up the freeway moot as far as 2022 goes.
The Padres will host the Philadelphia Phillies in Game 1 of the NLCS on Tuesday. The Dodgers, who beat the Padres 14 of the 19 times they played in the regular season, will watch on TV.
The fateful inning began with the Padres down 3-0 and having not scored since the fourth inning on Friday.
Jurickson Profar led off the seventh with a walk, moved to third on Trent Grisham’s single and scored on Austin Nola’s single.
Dodgers manager Dave Roberts walked to the mound and replaced Tommy Kahnle with Yency Almonte, who had in two appearances in the series struck out all five Padres he had faced.
With the crowd chanting his name, Ha-Seong Kim grounded a two-strike double down the left field line to score Grisham and move Nola to third. With the crowd chanting, “Beat L.A.,” Juan Soto followed with a line drive single that tied the game before Almonte struck out Manny Machado and got Brandon Drury on a pop fly that Dodgers first baseman Freddie Freeman caught in front of the steps to the Padres dugout.
After Almonte threw a ball to Jake Cronenworth, Roberts again trudged to the dugout and called for left-hander Alex Vesia.
Vesia got up 1-2 on Cronenworth before throwing a ball that evened the count, and with no one covering second base, Soto ran and then shuffled to second base.
Cronenworth lined the next pitch to center field to bring in Kim and Soto.
Rain, which had previously fallen briefly and relatively lightly, began to pour in the eighth.
After Robert Suarez retired the Dodgers in order in the top of the inning, the grounds crew essentially covered the mound and batter’s boxes with fresh clay. The infield was starting to hold water as the Padres batted.
Fans were soaked. And they were loving it.
The mound was again repaired before Padres closer Josh Hader warmed up for the ninth, and the area near first base was doctored as Hader warmed up.
Hader had to face the top of the Dodgers’ order to close it out.
He struck out Mookie Betts and Trea Turner. With the crowd in a full-throated “Beat L.A.,” he struck out Freddie Freeman.
Before batting around and blowing up one of the major leagues’ top bullpens in the seventh inning, it had been a quiet night for the Padres and the 45,139 who showed up to cheer for them to try to continue on their way to what would be a first World Series title.
At 6:25 p.m., 12 minutes before the scheduled first pitch, it was announced the game would begin at 7:07 p.m. A couple brief showers had soaked downtown earlier and rain would fall a couple times during the early innings.
The game began at 7:08, with Joe Musgrove throwing a strike to Betts.
The crowd was at the start at least as amped and engaged as the previous night. Maybe more so.
It would be almost three hours later before the Padres really gave them something to get excited about for more than a minute.
Musgrove started for the Padres and punched the air in front of him with his fist and let out a yell as he stomped off the mound at the end of the sixth inning. He had struck out Gavin Lux with a fastball on his 101st pitch of the game.
The right-hander, an El Cajon native, had allowed six hits and walked three.
It was one of those walks that began a two-run third inning. The Dodgers added a run in seventh off Steven Wilson.
Tyler Anderson, a relatively soft-throwing left-hander who baffled the league much of the season and the Padres virtually every time they met, allowed two hits and no runs in five innings.
Save for Nola being up with runners at first and second and two outs in the second inning and Wil Myers being up in the same situation in the sixth, the biggest noise midgame came from the relatively tiny contingent of Dodgers fans in attendance. It was the first time they were heard from in the two games here.
The reason to cheer derived from the lethal top three in the Dodgers’ order giving the visitors a 2-0 lead.
A one-out walk to Betts was followed by Turner’s 109.4 mph grounder that got past third baseman Manny Machado and rolled to the left field corner. Freeman then grounded a double down the right field line at 100.5 mph past first baseman Myers to end the Dodgers’ 0-for-20 stretch with runners in scoring position and drive in Betts and Turner.
The trio batted a collective .297 with 77 home runs in the regular season. Freeman, who was 3-for-3 against Musgrove on Saturday and 5-for-9 in ’22, is almost certain to be top-five finisher in NL MVP voting and all three could finish in the top 10.
They would do the bulk of the work for the Dodgers’ third run as well. Wilson walked Betts, Turner moved him over with a bunt single and the bases were loaded when Wilson hit Freeman with a pitch.
Betts scored on a sacrifice fly before Tim Hill came in to retire the next two batters.
