Motivated by a crowd of more than 45,000 raucous fans confident of seeing their own prevail against their Californian rivals, the San Diego Padres took one step closer to the Nationals championship series, winning 2-1 against the Los Angeles Dodgers yesterday.
Like the Atlanta Braves, the Dodgers could be shown the exit today by losing to the Padres.
Reliever Josh Hader ended the game by striking out Trayce Thompson on a fast 99 mph. It was exactly for a moment like this that the Padres traded with the Milwaukee Brewers at the deadline in an effort to get their hands on the long-haired reliever.
Trent Grisham, the obscure hero of these series, allowed his team to win by hitting his third home run in the 2022 playoffs. Grisham made his game winner against Andrew Heaney.
Padres starter Blake Snell faced the Dodgers for the first time in the playoffs since his early exit in the 2020 World Series. Recall that Snell criticized his manager Kevin Cash for taking him out of the game too quickly against the Dodgers then that he was in control. This event prompted Snell to pack his bags for the West Coast.
Snell did very well yesterday by limiting the Dodgers’ powerful offense to just one small run on five hits. For his part, Tony Gonsolin quickly took the path of the showers, he whose earned run average in the playoffs is day and night with his habits in the regular season. Dave Roberts quickly gave the ball to Heaney after just one and a third innings of work. Gonsolin had given the locals a run on four hits.
Today, in a potentially game-changing game, left-hander Tyler Anderson will have the daunting task of allowing the Dodgers to survive as he faces Joe “the ears” Musgrove.
Musgrove caught the eye during the recent series against the Mets when New York manager Buck Showalter asked the referees to check the Padres starter’s ears, claiming that he was using them to hide a product that can then benefit him. The latter responded nicely by allowing his people to win.
