For a first act, it was deafening madness.
For a first step, it was a dizzying leap.
For a Game 1, it was a Game 7, nine innings fought, cheered and inhaled by more than 53,000 fans as if it were the last baseball game on Earth.
Wait, are the Dodgers going to play more games like this?
Yes, absolutely, at least 10 more, up to 18 more, and come on, more, more, more, the senses cannot get enough of what the Dodgers brought to the San Diego Padres on Saturday night in their 7-5 victory in Game 1 of the National League Division Series at Dodger Stadium.
Read more: Shohei Ohtani’s three-run homer helps Dodgers edge Padres in Game 1 of NLDS
It began with blue flags fluttering from the roofs of the pirogues and blue rags hoisted and waved through the cheerfully packed hall.
It ended with Blake Treinen He struck out Donovan Solano with the bases loaded in the eighth, then struck out Manny Machado with the tying runs on base to end the ninth.
From start to finish, pure madness, in the middle of a mob that never calmed down, never quieted, never gave up.
“I don’t think there’s any comparison to what was happening here at Dodger Stadium.” Teoscar Hernandez he said during an interview with Fox afterward.
The Padres quickly led by three. Boom! Shohei Ohtani He caught them in one fell swoop.
The Padres quickly led by two again. Pop! The Dodgers passed them with a wild pitch and a rocket from Hernandez.
The Padres were reeling. The Dodgers were relentless, moving forward after a Manny Machado meltdown and finishing them off with an exciting bullpen that pitched six scoreless innings.
More, yes, more, the Dodgers need more of this kind of fire if they want to chase away their October first-round demons and finish off the Padres in a best-of-five rematch from two seasons ago.
“I could really feel the intensity of the stadium before the game started and I really enjoyed it,” Ohtani said through interpreter Will Ireton.
He wasn’t the only one who had fun. This was the Dodgers’ first playoff win in 725 days. Given their recent postseason history, this was arguably the Dodgers’ biggest Game 1 postseason win since Kirk Gibson went deep against the Oakland Athletics in 1988.
The Dodgers desperately needed this kind of night to avoid the familiar sense of dread that would have descended upon the clubhouse with a loss. They desperately needed to prove that they won’t be left out of the postseason in embarrassment again.
In more than three hours that seemed like three minutes on Saturday, they demonstrated all that and more, more, more.
“We are going to fight, every pitch, every at-bat,” Hernández said.
Back in 2022, the Padres won this series in four games against a haughty Dodgers team that lacked intensity. Clearly that won’t happen this time; Witness a play that led to no runs but meant everything.
In the third inning, while recovering from a badly sprained ankle that nearly kept him out of the lineup, Freddie Freeman stole second base.
Seriously, he stole second place with one leg.
Last season, in this same series, the Arizona Diamondbacks swept a Dodgers team that lacked any offensive aggressiveness. That won’t happen this time; Witness the start of the Dodgers’ lead recovery in the fourth inning.
It all started when Tommy Edman made a perfect touch on the uncovered left side of the infield.
Believe it, someone in modern baseball actually managed to reach base with a bunt.
More fire, more fight, and of course, the Dodgers have added a weapon they’ve been missing the past two years, arguably the greatest weapon in baseball history.
More, more, more Ohtani! He’s officially unreal, he’s undeniably otherworldly, and he proved it again twice in three game-changing innings.
With two out and two runners on base in the second inning while trailing 3-0, Ohtani fouled his knee and grabbed his knee and winced in pain. But hey, remember, this is Superman. He launched the next four-seam fastball at 111 mph into the right field pavilion accompanied by a roar that made the press box literally rock. And forget all your usual outward politeness. His reaction to this latest display of ferocity was downright ferocious, a furiously thrown bat and a prolonged howl.
After the Padres rallied to score a couple more runs off terrible starter Yoshinobu Yamamoto (more on that later), here came Ohtani again.
In the fourth, Superman arrived again with two runners on base thanks to Edman’s surprise bunt and a single from Miguel Rojas. This time, Ohtani broke his bat but swung so hard that the ball still floated into center field for a bases-loading single. After a run scored on Adrián Morejón’s wild pitch, Hernández singled to center that scored two runs when rookie Jackson Merrill botched the short jump.
That gave the Dodgers a one-run lead that increased an inning later after Machado lazily uncorked a wild throw to first that led to another Dodgers run.
In fact, the constantly booed Machado hit a home run in the first inning but eventually broke down. The entire Padres team seemed bewildered by the noise of the Dodger fans and the attack of the Dodger lineup.
“I’m looking forward to teeing off,” Dodgers manager Dave Roberts said before the game. “I hope we’re ready for the fight.”
They did it, and they were it.
Roberts added that he felt a sense of revenge over the past week.
“I think there’s a certain intensity,” he said. “Some people want to pay some people back and show them how good we are. And I like that. I like that feeling that resonates in our clubhouse.”
On Saturday night that sentiment resonated on the field with one exception.
This is still a team with a starting pitching problem.
The game began amid a rotation controversy, with the Dodgers changing course late in the week and starting Yamamoto, the fragile $325 million offseason investment who had pitched all four games since June.
It was a terrible idea. Many, even here, initially considered it a terrible idea. It was a classic case of the Dodgers’ renowned think tank making a mockery of itself.
Yamamoto reportedly recovered from a shoulder injury that cost him nearly three months this summer, but he had pitched more than four innings only once during his four-start return.
Their initial choice to start Game 1, Jack Flaherty, was postponed to Game 2, with the idea that this way both Flaherty and the fragile Yamamoto could be available for Game 5.
But who’s planning Game 5 when the series hasn’t even started yet? Why would you want to hold on to your best available starter to put Game 1 in the hands of a soft-shouldered pitcher who has never experienced a major league October?
Yamamoto was terrible in almost every one of his 60 pitches, allowing five runs on five hits with two walks and one strikeout, and no one was fooled.
He and the Dodgers were lucky their offense was so potent. They may not be so lucky next time.
A great start… and yet a big hurdle between this and the repeated obligatory encores.
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This story originally appeared on Los Angeles Times.
