Sports
Plaschke: Dodgers fans lose their cool and Dodgers lose their edge
Two baseballs flew down toward the San Diego Padres’ Jurickson Profar from the left-field corner stands, the gutless moves of two cowards.
Numerous water bottles flew down toward the Padres’ Fernando Tatis Jr. from the right-field corner stands, the gutless moves of many cowards.
More than a game was lost Sunday night when the Padres equaled the National League Division Series at one game apiece with a 10-2 victory over the Dodgers.
An already tattered image was further damaged. An historically bad reputation was further stained. Anyone out there walking around town wearing a Dodger jersey today should be embarrassed.
On a national stage, a few bad actors among the largest Dodger Stadium crowd of the season only furthered the harmful narrative that Chavez Ravine is a place stocked with punks.
In a startling display for a game of this magnitude, a pack of sorry spectators caused the game to be stopped for nearly 10 minutes before the bottom of the seventh inning while balls and bottles rained down on the field.
“I’ve seen over a thousand games here, well over a thousand games in this ballpark, and I’ve never seen anything like that,” Dodgers manager Dave Roberts said. “So obviously there’s a lot of emotions and things like that. But that’s something that should never happen.”
The Dodger fans had once again let the taunting, preening Padres get under their skin.
“Dodger fans, they were just not happy,” Tatis said. “They’re losing the game, obviously, and just a lot of back and forth. What can I say? I wish they could control it a little bit more, their emotions.”
To make matters worse, the Dodgers also let the Padres get under their skin, wilting under a barrage of Padres aggressiveness on a night when the visitors danced all over Dodger Stadium with six home runs, a stolen home run, and all sorts of celebrations to accompany it all.
“That’s one of those that you just kind of want to wash away and get to the next day,” Roberts said.
The Padres were tacky, but that was no excuse for Dodgers fans to be idiots. Their actions impossibly turned the Padres bad actors into the good guys.
“It was a bunch of dudes that showed up in front of a big, hostile crowd with stuff being thrown at them and said, ‘We’re going to talk with our play; we’re not going to back down; we’re going to elevate our game; we’re going to be together; and we’re going to take care of business,” Padres manager Mike Shildt said.
The Padres were on the attack, but that was no excuse for the Dodgers to retreat behind spotty pitching from Jack Flaherty and impatient hitting against aging Padres starter Yu Darvish. They turned a reeling Padres team into winners.
“It was ugly,” said Roberts. “It was ugly.”
The best-of-five series now moves to San Diego’s Petco Park, where, thanks to Sunday’s disturbance, the rowdy Padre fans will now be poised to retaliate. They don’t like the Dodgers down there. Now they’re going to like them a lot less.
“I know we’re about to go back to San Diego with a very, very loud, raucous, aggressive, hungry crowd that’s going to be super excited and going to be getting after it,” said Shildt. “But I know also that we’ll stay classy, San Diego.”
The Dodgers will not only be clunking down the 5 Freeway on the flattened tires of lousy starting pitching, but they could also be without Freddie Freeman, whose badly sprained ankle led him to leave Sunday’s game in the sixth inning.
Winning two out of three against a surging Padres team that suddenly has home-field advantage was already going to be a tough chore. What happened Sunday is going to make it tougher.
After the security stoppage in the seventh inning, Manny Machado led the Padres in what appeared to be an emotional impromptu team meeting in their dugout. They were holding a 4-1 lead at the time. In the final three innings they outscored the Dodgers 6-1.
“Just regroup, resettle,” said Tatis of the meeting. “The game was on our side. We know what we’re capable of. And, man, it was just a reminder who we really are as a group and just how crazy we can turn a place to go nuts. That’s all it was about.”
San Diego Padres third baseman Manny Machado shouts at Dodgers players in the dugout during Sunday’s game.
(Robert Gauthier / Los Angeles Times)
When recounting Game 2, it’s important not to cast Padres as unblemished heroes. In fact, they started it all.
In the first inning, Profar lunged into the left-field corner stands to steal a home run from Mookie Betts. Ironically, in one moment where it would have been good for Dodger fans to be aggressive, they got tentative by allowing Profar to make the catch. Profar then taunted those fans by facing the stands and dancing in their faces.
In the fourth inning, it got worse after Tatis made a lunging catch of a Freeman drive in right field. He then proceeded to sarcastically lead the profane chants of fans in the right-field pavilion.
The bad blood reached a boiling point in the sixth inning when Flaherty hit Tatis in the side, leading to a stare from the tempestuous right fielder and words from Profar.
Moments later, with Tatis and Profar on first and second, Machado struck out, after which Flaherty appeared to shout a profane taunt at him that led to shouts from both dugouts.
Flaherty was removed from the game after the strikeout, but that didn’t quell the jawing, as Flaherty stood on the fringes of the dugout and continued to verbally spar with Machado throughout the bottom of the sixth.
One inning later, after the seventh-inning stretch, the chaos broke loose as both Profar and Tatis were surrounded by security guards while public address announcer Todd Leitz pleaded for order.
The rest of the game was completed without incident.
But, in a series in which Roberts urged his team to throw the first punch, the Padres have punched back, and the Dodger fans have punched badly, and this dance is just getting started.