The crowd responded as it was implored when the video and ribbon boards around Petco Park flashed brown and yellow with the words “Beat L.A.” before the first pitch was thrown Monday night.
The first organic “Beat L.A.” chant came a short while later, as the second Dodgers batter stepped in against Padres starter Yu Darvish.
By the time the Padres came to bat in the bottom of the first inning, there had been three such war cries plus a “Let’s Go Dodgers” drowned out by a “Let’s Go Padres.”
Then it really got loud downtown.
A game the Padres won 6-2 began with a fervor impossible in the past two seasons, and it unfolded in a manner unlike any of those they had previously played against the Dodgers this season. (Box score.)
A giant cheer rose as Tommy Pham’s leadoff double tailed away from right fielder Zach McKinstry and bounced into the corner. Fernando Tatis Jr. walking to the plate induced an “MVP” chant, and his walk brought an ovation that verged on thunderous. Both cheers were outdone when Jake Cronenworth doubled to left-center field to drive in Pham with the game’s first run.
Four pitches later, as Manny Machado’s high fly ball began its flight to a no-doubt, 391-foot home run to the seats beyond left field, the roar may have been heard above a landing plane at Lindbergh Field.
Playing in front of the largest crowd of the season, a sellout announced at 42,220 in the fifth game in which state regulations allowed Petco Park to be full, the Padres led 4-0 without having made an out.
They would send five more batters to the plate but not add on, as Dodgers left-hander Julio Urias took 38 pitches to get through the first inning.
It was just the seventh inning of the 69 the two teams had played to that point this season that ended with one or the other up by more than two runs.
The margin would hold until the third inning, when Mookie Betts ended a run of seven consecutive strikeouts by Darvish with a home run just over the wall in center field.
Darvish’s 197th career game finished for him after six innings. He allowed two hits and struck out 11, the last of which was the 1,500th of his career. He is the first player in major league history to reach the milestone in fewer than 206 games.
Eric Hosmer pinch-hit for Darvish in the bottom of the sixth and doubled to right-center field before being stranded. Hosmer remained in the game to play first base while Cronenworth moved to second base to replace Ha-seong Kim, who appeared to injure a finger on his throwing hand fielding a grounder that he converted into the third out in the sixth.
Tim Hill began the seventh by hitting a batter, walking a batter and striking out a batter before being replaced by Austin Adams. A strikeout and walk loaded the bases for Betts, who flied out to center field.
Craig Stammen began the eighth and allowed a two-out solo home run by Will Smith.
Emilio Pagán worked a perfect ninth to close out the victory that moved the third-place Padres (43-32) within 2 1/2 games of the second-place Dodgers (44-28) and to 4 1/2 back of the National League West-leading Giants (46-26).
Tatis’ double leading off the bottom the fifth was the Padres’ first hit since the first inning, and Cronenworth followed with a line drive onto the home run deck in right that made it 6-1 and again brought the crowd to its feet — at least those dressed in brown.
As Dodgers manager Dave Roberts went out to get Urias after the homer, another “Beat L.A.” chant rained down.
With a crowd made up, by most estimates, of 80% Padres fans, virtually every action by either team drew some sort of reaction from the stands.
Both pitchers were booed when they threw to first base to hold a runner. It was difficult to discern which team’s name was being chanted. The cheer for Betts’ homer didn’t compare to the one for Machado’s blast, but it was far louder than for any other visiting player’s good deed.
Those who came to Petco Park were primed for something special after what took place in the season’s opening month.
This was the first time the Padres and Dodgers had met since playing seven thrillers in a 10-day span in April. (Their next meeting after games Tuesday and Wednesday will be a three-games series here near the end of August. They will play six times at Dodger Stadium in September.)
It was perhaps a little much to ask that the teams would be able to sustain what they did in thrilling what seemed like the entire baseball-watching world two months earlier. But then, what they did then was improbable.
The first and last of those games went extra innings and lasted five hours. Three of the seven were decided by one run, including one of the extra-inning games, in which the Padres came back from a six-run, sixth-inning deficit. The Padres turned a spectacular game-saving double play at Dodger Stadium. Betts made a game-ending diving catch at Petco Park. The Dodgers led at the end of 25 innings, the Padres at the end of 22 and the teams were tied for 21.
Monday night was not that. It was just a loud win.
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