Padres rout Dodgers to even NL Division series at one game apiece

LOS ANGELES — At the end of a Sunday evening that was even more charged than most postseason games, the San Diego Padres are alive and well.

Yu Darvish was as good as ever. Fernando Tatis Jr. and Jackson Merrill continued to rise to the occasion of October. Jurickson Profar was in the middle of it all again.

And the Padres bounced back in a big way with a 10-2 rout of the Dodgers that evened the National League Division Series at a game apiece.

The best-of-five series now moves down Interstate 5 to Petco Park, where it will resume on Tuesday.

Tatis hit the first and last of the Padres’ five home runs, and Merrill drove in three of their first six runs.

And after a season interrupted by injury and a personal matter that kept him away from the team for three months, Darvish turned in a gem to win his second Game 2 of an NLDS in two tries for the Padres.

Darvish allowed one run on three hits in seven innings Sunday, the last of which was his most arduous due to nothing he or any other player did.

The sixth inning, which featured multiple angry exchanges between the teams, saw Tatis get hit in the knee by a pitch from Flaherty at the start. Tatis scored on a single by Jackson Merrill that gave the Padres a 4-1 lead.

Then, the seventh inning stretch gave way to a lengthy delay after baseballs were thrown in the direction of Profar.

For more than 10 minutes, a scene both chaotic and slow-motion unfolded as Darvish started and stopped warming up several times.

First, Profar was escorted to the edge of the infield grass by two umpires and then surrounded by all of his teammates, including Darvish, manager Mike Shildt and the other four umpires.

Two umpires then walked toward a spot near home plate to confer with the Dodgers’ head of security as about a dozen members of the Dodger Stadium security staff fanned out around the field and an announcement was made imploring fans to not throw objects on the field.

At one point, the umpires were prepared to resume the game when bottles were thrown on the warning track in right field. Security personnel sprinted onto the grass to pull in the Padres outfielders.

The bottom of the inning finally began with Teoscar Hernández drawing a walk.

But after a visit by pitching coach Ruben Niebla, Darvish retired the next three batters.

As center Merrill hauled in a drive to deep center field by Gavin Lux, Darvish clapped his hand to his mitt several times.

Manny Machado, who earlier had engaged in a shouting match with Dodgers starting pitcher Jack Flaherty, huddled the team around him in the dugout before the eighth inning.

Two quick outs started the inning before Machado singled to center field and, on the next pitch, Jackson Merrill sent a home run into the left field bleachers.

Xander Bogaerts followed with a solo homer that made it 7-1. Kyle Higashioka’s third homer of the postseason pushed the lead to 8-1 and Tatis’ third homer of the postseason made it 10-1 in the eighth inning.

Tanner Scott took over for Darvish and worked a scoreless eighth before Alek Jacob allowed a Max Muncy homer in the ninth.

The night began with a Tatis home run in the game’s second at-bat, as the Padres continued their postseason trend of starting quickly.

The blast to the Dodgers bullpen beyond left field was Tatis’ second first-inning homer of the postseason and gave the Padres a first-inning run in three of the four games.

It appeared — to left field umpire Adrian Johnson, to the FS1 broadcast crew, to most of the 54,119 inside Dodger Stadium — that the Dodgers’ No. 2 hitter also homered in the bottom of the first.

But Profar had chased down Mookie Betts’ drive toward the corner, timed his jump over the short wall and leaped to bring in the ball as outstretched hands hit his glove.

Betts was between second and third and had just pumped his fist when Johnson reversed his initial call to an out.

Merrill led off the top of the third with a single, and after two groundouts, David Peralta’s first career postseason homer put the Padres up 3-0.

That gave the Padres 14 runs in the first two innings of their four playoff games.

They would go on to score four runs off Flaherty, the last of those coming on Merrill’s single against reliever Anthony Banda immediately after Flaherty departed with one out in the sixth.

That one out, which came after a bunt single by Profar moved Tatis to second base, was a strikeout of Machado.

Tatis walked extremely slowly to first base after being hit, but it was Profar and Machado who expressed the most vehement objection to the pitch.

And after Machado waved at a fastball well off the plate, Flaherty yelled, “Sit the (expletive) down, (expletive).”

Machado stopped at the dugout’s top step and yelled back.

As Darvish warmed up and Machado was standing near third base before the bottom of the sixth, Flaherty yelled from the nearby Dodgers dugout in Machado’s direction. Machado yelled back, and third base umpire Tripp Gibson and Johnson stepped between them as the jawing continued and Darvish waited to throw his first pitch.

Darvish, who allowed three runs in five innings in Game 2 of the 2022 NLDS here before taking the next two at home to advance to the NL Championship Series, worked a 1-2-3 sixth before enduring that long seventh. He finished his night by retiring 15 of the 17 batters he faced after the Dodgers scored their only run against him in the second inning.

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