You don’t simply beat the Dodgers, especially with their current constellation of stars. You need to yank out the spark plugs, flatten the tires and toss their car keys into the bay.
As long as they can fog a mirror, the dread lingers. You feel the hot breath on your collar and uncertainty rounding the corner, steadying your jaw for the counter punch.
You need to be patient and polished and unfailingly persistent.
You need to play like the Padres did Sunday at Petco Park, pitching and hitting and hustling and adding on until the deed was done in a 4-0 mother of a Mother’s Day win that sealed a second straight series against the badgering blue.
“I feel like this series was as good as possible for us,” said Padres right fielder Fernando Tatis Jr., who opened the scoring with a 442-foot shot to center in the first inning. “We showed we can play really good and clean baseball games.
“… We definitely have momentum going on. The starters are getting under their feet and the offense is clicking.”
If there is a checklist for winning — whether it’s a second consecutive series against the Dodgers or four series in a row, something that has not happened since mid-summer of 2021 — the Padres seemed to hit all the boxes.
Starting pitcher Yu Darvish was machinelike, striking out seven and walking one in a seven-inning shutout. The Padres hit for power with Jake Cronenworth and Xander Bogaerts joining Tatis with homers in the first and fifth innings.
They stole three bases. They kept the pressure on. Darvish saved the bullpen and, a night after a rocky bullpen run, Wandy Peralta got the ball to closer Robert Suarez.
The Dodgers did not produce a base runner until the fifth inning.
The few blemishes — Jurickson Profar caught on the bases in the fifth, Bogaerts letting a ball through the wickets in the ninth — became no-harm, no-foul afterthoughts.
A beauty, this one.
“It’s seems like the little stretch we’re on right now, it’s been really good,” Cronenworth said. “Quality start, quality at-bats, some good defense is a good recipe for some wins.”
The Padres, you might have heard, do not claim the most palatable regular-season history against the Dodgers. The margin of error routinely has been brutally thin.
Early in 2024, though, the Padres have won five of eight against the stingy NL West neighbor. They have poked their noses a game above .500 with the Rockies limping into Petco Park.
They’re now 5-1 in rubber games this season. They’re 8-3 in their last 11.
Choose to process any of that as you wish, but plenty of arrows are pointing north.
“I feel like that’s the case for sure,” said manager Mike Shildt, asked about the momentum. “I mean, we’ve talked about it quite a bit, you know, better as the game goes, better as the series goes, better as the season goes.”
It never really felt like the Padres of a season ago found this type of footing until it was too late.
That the run of series victories comes on the heels of a five-game losing skid shows some of the bounce-back resilience the Padres failed to show when postseason fates were being decided last season.
Some will focus on one weekend against the Dodgers. At this point, it has become broader than that.
Head-down stuff.
“It’s more of a day-to-day thing,” said center fielder Jackson Merrill, who finished with three hits and two stolen bases while scoring a run. “You’re not playing for the postseason right now. You’re playing for the season now and winning right now.
“We’ve got to win today. We’ll figure out tomorrow tomorrow.”
The lot of it could tumble into the abyss at any minute, as sports and baseball and the Padres of 2023 have reminded us. For now, though, after tacking on a Dodger-sized exclamation point, things are positioned a bit differently.
A string of four step-up starts from Dylan Cease, Michael King, Matt Waldron and Darvish with his gem amplifies the feel-good vibes for the Padres.
“Our confidence is always pretty high,” Merrill said. “Even losing the (lopsided) Phillies series, we had confidence in ourselves. We’re going to go out with the same mentality, whether it’s the Rockies or the Dodgers. We’re not just trying to win, but beat their (butt).”
Even the chief scuffler of the moment, Xander Bogaerts, found his stroke, parking a ball to center to produce the Padres’ final run in the fifth.
“It felt nice,” he said. “Finally hit one and you know it’s gone and know that no one’s going to get close to that one. … That’s a really good team. Now our focus should be on the Rockies. They might not have the same record as the Dodgers, but it’s still a really good major league team.
“You’ve just got to keep going, keep pushing and don’t slack in any department.”
Does it mean something in May? Maybe, maybe not.
If the Padres keep it up, though, the Dodgers might have to think about parking the car somewhere else.
