SAN DIEGO (AP) — Mookie Betts homered for the second straight night, Shohei Ohtani hit an RBI single and the Los Angeles Dodgers defeated Dylan Cease and the San Diego Padres 8-0 Wednesday night to seal a decisive Game 5 force in their exciting NL Division series.

Will Smith and Gavin Lux each hit a two-run homer for the Dodgers, who snapped a two-game losing streak and now return home for the next game between the NL West rivals on Friday night.

“We’ve got a bunch of grinders, a bunch of fighters,” Betts said after the Dodgers recorded the biggest shutout win in franchise postseason history. “We knew it wasn’t going to be easy.”

The Padres won 10-2 at Dodger Stadium in Game 2 on Sunday night, as tempers flared on the field and in the stands.

The winner has home field advantage National League Championship Series against the New York Metswho eliminated the Philadelphia Phillies in their NLDS.

“I am proud. … Your desire has to be greater than your opponent’s,” Dodgers manager Dave Roberts said. “To see our guys go through what they went through and respond the way they did makes me excited about Game 5.”

The Dodgers got a big effort from opener Ryan Brasier and seven fellow relievers in a bullpen game, holding the Padres to seven hits and extending their scoreless streak to 15 innings. Evan Phillips, who picked up the win, retired Jurickson Profar, Manny Machado and Jackson Merrill on five pitches in the sixth.

“Overall the guys were efficient because they understood they had to do ups and downs and possibly go a little longer,” Roberts said. “So the offensive zone efficiency was huge and it gives us options for Game 5.”

The Dodgers silenced the Petco Park record crowd of 47,773, which had hoped San Diego would eliminate LA in the NLDS for the second time in three seasons.

With All-Star first baseman Freddie Vrijman Sidelined by a troublesome right ankle sprain, Betts and Ohtani – who starred in his first season with the Dodgers – had to perform to keep LA’s season alive. They did, with Betts driving in two runs on two hits and Ohtani driving in one run and reaching base three times.

With the Dodgers leading 5-0, the Japanese superstar was thrown out trying to score from second on Teoscar Hernández’s fourth-inning single, which went off third baseman Machado’s glove and hit umpire Mark Ripperger. Machado spun around the ball, grabbed the ball and fired it to catcher Kyle Higashioka, who tagged Ohtani for the third out.

The Padres’ gamble to stop on short rest backfired. He got Ohtani to ground out to open the game before Betts homered on a full-count pitch. Stop put two runners on with one out in the second and after getting the second out, he was chased by Ohtani’s RBI single to right on his 38th pitch.

“I like how the ball came out of my hand and I didn’t feel like I was shooting myself in the foot too much, which I did. I felt good there,” Cease said. As for the early hook: “It depended on the results and unfortunately the results weren’t there today.”

Betts hit an RBI single on Bryan Hoeing’s first pitch for a 3-0 lead, pacifying the towel-waving sellout crowd.

This time, Betts had no doubts about his home run. He hit a 3-2 pitch into the Padres’ bullpen past the left-center fence and raised his right index finger as he drove around first, as Ohtani raised his arms in celebration in the dugout.

Tuesday night, Betts homered to left but thought Jurickson Profar had robbed him again and turned toward the dugout before his teammates and even Padres starter Michael King gestured that it was a homer. Profar robbed Betts of a home run at Dodger Stadium on Sunday night and deceived the fans. That game was stopped for twelve minutes after fans threw baseballs at Profar and threw trash in the outfield.

Betts capped an 0-for-22 playoff slump with his homer on Tuesday night.

“I’m not trying to win the game for us. And we have plenty of guys who can win games for us,” Betts said. “I just want to contribute to the team. And that’s all I focused on.”

Ohtani hit a game-tying three-run homer off Cease in the slugger’s highly anticipated playoff debut, a 7-5 victory on Saturday evening. Ohtani became the first member of the 50-50 club this season with 54 home runs and 59 stolen bases.

With Max Muncy on board after a leadoff double in the third, Smith hit a Hoeing pitch to the batter’s eye in center field for a 5-0 lead. The Dodgers added in the seventh with Tommy Edman’s sacrifice bunt and Lux’s two-run shot to Wandy Peralta.

The Dodgers kept slugger Fernando Tatis Jr. in the Garden after hitting three home runs in the first three games, including two on Sunday night, and four total this postseason. Brasier struck out Tatis in the first inning, the star’s first whiff in six playoff games.

“They were executed as a group tonight, my thanks to them,” Tatis said. “We rolled like an offense. But we had a few innings that didn’t go in our favor. We need to get a better approach on the ground. … just better at-bats as a group.”

NEXT

Padres RHP Yu Darvish will start Game 5. The Dodgers have not yet named a starter.

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