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Jurickson Profar sets the tone for Padres in Game 2 win over Dodgers
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Jurickson Profar sets the tone for Padres in Game 2 win over Dodgers

The home run music blared through the speakers at Dodger Stadium. Mookie Betts started rounding the bases and pointing to the bullpen.

Just like the night before, it looked like the Dodgers had erased an early deficit thanks to the back of one of their superstar players.

But only then did the 54,119 people at Chavez Ravine realize that Jurickson Profar had played a spectacular game instead.

If Shohei Ohtani’s game-tying home run in Game 1 of the National League Division Series last Saturday night energized the Dodgers for a comeback victory, Profar’s first-inning robbery of Betts in Game 2 did just the opposite: It frustrated the Dodgers, and what later became an unruly crowd, in an eventual 10-2 series night victory over the San Diego Padres.

Games 3 and 4 are this week on Tuesday and Wednesday nights in San Diego. And now, facing what has become a best-of-three showdown, the Dodgers will have to do something they’ve accomplished only once in the regular season: win at Petco Park, or watch another division-winning season erupt in the play-offs.

Profar’s home run heist might not have won the game for the Padres. But it set an early tone in what would be a heated Game 2 battle.

Looking for his first postseason hit since Game 3 of the 2022 NLDS — a string of 19 hitless at-bats entering Sunday — Betts thought he had it with a fly ball deep down the left field line, one that initially appeared to catch Fernando Tatis answering Jr.’s solo blast in the top of the first inning.

Profar, the left fielder from San Diego, ran to the warning track and leaned into the crowd, fighting for the ball amid a sea of ​​opponents and outstretched arms. At first, it didn’t look like he came up with it: The bunny jumped away from the wall as Betts started his home run trot.

As it turned out, Profar was merely taunting the Dodger fans from whom he had taken the ball. After a few seconds, he turned back to the field, showed the ball to the referee and celebrated as Betts craned his neck and returned to the dugout.

Instead of a tie, the Padres stayed ahead 1-0. The lead would increase in the next half inning, when ex-Dodger David Peralta hit the second home run of the game off Jack Flaherty to center for a two-run shot.

There were few goals scored, but there was a lot of emotion.

For the Dodgers, it was mostly frustration with the game – in which they squandered several scoring opportunities (including just one run on a bases-loaded opportunity in the second), and lost Freddie Freeman early in the sixth inning. He left the team with what the team said was “discomfort” in his sprained right ankle.

For the Padres, it was passionate anger at the crowd — when the on-field showmanship of Profar and Tatis, who responded to fourth-inning boos from the right-field stands with a smile and a dance, turned into something else in the seventh inning.

As the Padres took the field after the seventh inning, Profar appeared to point a fan down the left field line toward an umpire and a stadium security official. When Profar began waving goodbye to the spectator, hundreds of other Dodger fans in the area became hostile.

At one point, a ball was launched from the left field pavilion in Profar’s direction. Then, more debris was dropped near the right field line, causing a nearly 10-minute delay as more security officials surrounded the diamond.

Before that, there were other emotional exchanges between Dodgers and Padres players.

Profar connected with Will Smith at the plate in the top of the sixth inning after Tatis was hit by a pitch from Flaherty in the previous at bat. Moments later, Flaherty ended his 5 ⅓ inning, four-run start by striking out Machado and yelling expletives in his direction, a back-and-forth that continued into the next half inning with Machado on third base and Flaherty in the dugout out.

However, all this did little to change the outcome.

The Padres put the game away with a string of home runs (they hit a total of six in the game) in the eighth and ninth innings – all after a team huddle hosted by Machado in the San Diego dugout.

The Dodgers, meanwhile, never saw action against Padres starter Yu Darvish, who gave up just three hits and two walks in a seven-inning, one-run gem.

This best-of-five series equals one match each. And as it moves to San Diego, it’s also wrapped up in an extra dose of postseason intensity.