Dodgers, Padres are weaponizing fastballs

The Padres' lifelong quest to get the Dodgers' attention boiled over this week.

Mark Walter, the primary owner of the Dodgers, put the Lakers into his shopping cart the other day. Whether he used a kiosk or waited patiently for an actual cashier is not known. It was a major transaction even for him, $10 billion worth.He already had the entire Professional Women’s Hockey League, a Formula One team, and the Los Angeles Sparks. This week reminded us that he and the Dodgers own the San Diego Padres as well, or at least a part of their headspace.

The Dodgers finally got around to playing the Padres last week and are now 5-2 in two head-to-head series, but that’s not what we’re talking about. Eight times in four Dodger Stadium games, someone got hit by a pitch, and it happened twice to Padres outfielder Fernando Tatis. In fact, it’s happened six times in the past 17 times Tatis has faced the Dodgers. When he got drilled in the wrist by Jack Little, Padres manager Mike Schildt rode a carpet of F-bombs to the plate, and he and Dodger counterpart Dave Roberts actually shoved each other, which brought the players onto the field for some pent-up woofing. Sure enough, Robert Suarez drilled Shohei Ohtani in the shoulder blades, but Ohtani trotted to first base without comment and, in fact, held up his hand to keep his teammates in the dugout.

Shohei also addressed the San Diego dugout. Whether he reminded the Padres that he was now pitching again, and presumably will be the next time they get together, was not available for interpretation.

The Padres were incensed over the possibility of Tatis’ being injured. “They better light a candle,” Manny Machado said, meaning that a serious injury might bring some bunker-busting fastballs the next time, which is Aug. 15 in Los Angeles. The promotion that night is a Drone Show. One hopes the authorities will be checking their payload.

Tatis did play against Kansas City Friday night. But none of this occurred in a vacuum. The Dodgers’ Lou Trivino was the first to make contact on Thursday, hitting Bryce Johnson. On Wednesday, Stephen Kolek hit the Dodgers’ Andy Pages, two nights after Dylan Cease had gone up-and-in on Pages, which Pages interpreted as the Padres’ way of accusing Pages of stealing signs while at second base (horrors). When Pages complained, Schildt yelled, “Who the fuck do you think you are?” from the dugout. Pages then homered twice the next night, which, of course, prompted Matt Muncy to say, “I think Andy showed them who he is.”

That was Tuesday, when Randy Vasquez of the Padres hit Ohtani, Trivino hit Tatis, and the Dodgers’ Jeff Sauer hit Jose Iglesias.

Roberts and Shildt served one-game suspensions Friday, and Suarez was suspended for three games, a ruling that he will appeal.

There was a general distemper throughout the sport this week, but then baseball is supposed to reflect society as a whole. Houston’s Hunter Brown went after the Angels’ Zach Neto twice, hitting him in the wrist and prompting a major woofing session. Brown and Neto had gone nose to nose earlier this year in Houston. In Wrigley Field, Milwaukee manager Pat Murphy kept referring to “cheating motherfuckers” as he and his team celebrated a victory over the Cubs. Presumably, he was referring to the umpires, whose ball-strike calls were a frustration to closer Trevor Megill.

Off the field, the Dodgers were dealing with their own tone-deafness, understandable if you’ve endured the stadium’s wall of artificial noise for nine innings, apparently inspired by the monolith at the end of “2001.”

Last Saturday, the singer Nezza was asked to perform the National Anthem before a game with the Giants. She said she went to the mound, saw the preponderance of Latino fans, thought about the raids by masked, anonymous ICE personnel that had led to slight civil disturbance and over-the-top National Guard and Marine deployments, and decided to throw her own curveball. Nezza sang “El Pendon Estrellado,” the official Spanish translation that was composed in 1945. The Dodgers quickly disinvited Nezza from any other Anthem performances, and she said later she’d received death threats.

This highlighted the Dodgers’ silence over the raids. Angel City, the local women’s pro soccer team, wore “Immigrant City” warmups. On the back, the motto “Los Angeles is for everyone” was printed in English and Spanish. Latino fans make up at least a plurality of the Dodger base. Finally, the Dodgers pledged $1 million to “support immigrant families” that had been affected. That’s petty cash, of course, but it’s something.

Meanwhile, the Dodgers and Padres have lifted their rivalry past Cardinals-Cubs and Yankees-Red Sox. It has grown organically and blossomed on the field. Two years ago the Padres eliminated the Dodgers from the playoffs and were on the verge of it in 2024, with a 2-1 lead in the best-of-five division series. The Dodgers were out of starting pitchers and had to win Game 4 at Petco Park to save their season and, maybe, Roberts’ job. So Mookie Betts, Will Smith and Gavin Lux all homered, and eight relievers gave up no runs. With the blindfolds and handcuffs off, the Dodgers again shut out the Padres in the clincher and rampaged to a world championship.

For years the Padres were patsies for the Dodgers and their home ballpark, whether Qualcomm or Petco, was a welcome place for Dodger fans to vacation. Then they became an annoyance, winning the N.L. West by sweeping the Dodgers in Dodger Stadium on the final weekend of 1996. Two years later they won the division again and made their second World Series. A couple of months later, the Dodgers swooped in to sign Kevin Brown, the Padres’ best pitcher and the architect of that October surprise.

New, ambitious ownership made the Padres a threat. Peter Seider, the grandson of Dodger patriarch Walter O’Malley, openly talked of winning World Series. With the Chargers gone, San Diego fans began packing the ballpark, but they soon learned money and celebrity weren’t everything. The Padres got Juan Soto from Washington in July of 2022, but in a few weeks their fans were putting down their palm fronds and booing him unmercifully. The price for Soto was the nucleus of a franchise: Shortstop JJ Abrams, slugging outfielder James Wood and lefthander Mackenzie Gore. Think of where the Padres would be if they’d kept them. For one thing they wouldn’t have forced themselves to overpay frightfully for Xander Bogaerts, the free agent shortstop.

San Diego dealt Soto to the Yankees for a five-player package that featured pitchers Vasquez and Michael King. The Padres have been saved by a fertile farm system that gave them incipient star Jackson Merrill, the 21-year-old centerfielder. They appear to be getting a long-awaited full season from Tatis, still one of the most lavishly talented players in the game, after years of injury and suspension. But in another attempt to emulate the Dodgers, key pitchers King, Yu Darvish and Joe Musgrove are all hurt. Seidler died last year, at 63, and now the family is in a succession dispute.

The Padres are in third place behind the Giants, who just traded for Rafael Devers and seem to be loving the front-office leadership of franchise legend Buster Posey. They may soon reclaim their place at the top of the Dodgers’ enemies list.

That is, unless a meme that shows Ohtani in a Laker uniform actually comes to life. Surely he’s too busy with his hitting and his pitching and his Gaza and Ukraine negotiating to become Luka and LeBron’s third option. Besides, he wouldn’t miss a Dodgers-Padres series. To belabor the point, why should we settle for 13 high-hatred divisional games when we could have at least 20?