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Seven times in the last 10 days, the Dodgers and San Diego Padres have renewed their steadily intensifying divisional rivalry.
And in the last inning of the last one of those games Thursday night, the mounting tensions between the clubs — and their respective managers — finally ignited into a benches-clearing confrontation.
At the end of the Padres’ 5-3 win against the Dodgers, San Diego star Fernando Tatis Jr. was hit by a Dodgers pitcher for the third time over the two recent series between the National League West foes, and a career-high sixth time by the team in his six years in the majors.
Moments later, Dave Roberts and Mike Shildt were face-to-face on the field, engaged in a shouting match that caused both benches to empty in a heated melee behind home plate.
“I felt that he was trying to make it personal with me,” Roberts said of Shildt. “Which then, I take it personal.”
Indeed, as soon as Tatis got plunked on the hand by a 93 mph fastball from debuting Dodgers rookie Jack Little, Shildt came storming out of the dugout, walking over to check on Tatis while barking in Roberts’ direction.
Whatever Shildt said, Roberts took exception. Suddenly, he was charging onto the field, bumping into Shildt as the two jawed back and forth and their two teams swarmed around them.
“I didn’t feel good about Tatis — great player, good guy — getting hit,” Roberts said, insisting the pitch from Little, who had been activated before the game and was laboring through a two-inning outing, was unintentional.
“And so as he comes out, and he’s yelling at me and staring me down, that bothers me. Because, to be quite frank, that’s the last thing I wanted. I’m taking starters out of the game. Trying to get this game over with and get this kid a couple innings. And so that’s why I took that personal. Because I understand the game, and I understand that it doesn’t feel good to get hit. But understand again, intent versus clearly no intent.”
Shildt didn’t seem to care about that last point.
“After a while, enough’s enough,” he said. “Intentional, unintentional, the fact of the matter is we took exception with it. I responded.”
The scuffle didn’t get overly physical, with some light shoving between the clubs pushing the pile into the screen behind home plate. But emotions were running hot. Roberts and Shildt had to be separated from one another. Umpires ejected both men.
“Teams I manage don’t take anything,” Shildt said. “And after a while, I’m not gonna take it. And I’m not gonna take it on behalf of Tati, I’m not gonna take it on behalf of the team, intentional or unintentional. It’s really that simple. That’s how this game is played. And if you wanna call that old school, then yeah, we’ll play old-school baseball.”
Shildt’s latter point was proven in the bottom half of the inning.
After the Dodgers scored twice to generate some late life, Shohei Ohtani was hit by Padres closer Robert Suarez in a 3-and-0 count on a 100 mph fastball off his shoulder.
Roberts, watching from his office, said he believed “clearly there was intent behind it,” marking the second time in this series he felt the Padres threw at Ohtani to retaliate for Tatis getting hit.
“I don’t really care what they say,” Shildt said. “I really don’t.”
Did Roberts feel the Padres crossed a line?
“That’s their decision,” he said, “and Major League Baseball is gonna have to look at that.”
The plot only thickened from there.
This time, the benches stayed put — in part, it appeared, because Ohtani waved for his team to remain in the dugout as he walked up the first base line.
But because dugout warnings had been issued after Tatis’ hit-by-pitch, Suarez was ejected (along with Padres bench coach Brian Esposito). That forced the Padres to summon left-hander Yuki Matsui to close things out.
A resident captured pictures of vans with the same license plates at Home Depot ICE raids and Dodger Stadium, conflicting with DSH social media posts.
And for a brief moment, it looked like he might blow it.
With two runners on, the Dodgers (46-30) were supposed to have the heart of their order up. However, Roberts had already pinch-hit for Mookie Betts, Will Smith and Freddie Freeman an inning earlier, deciding to get his stars off their feet while facing a five-run deficit.
“We’re at a stretch here of a lot of games, and I felt that that was the right time,” Roberts said.
Thus, it was Miguel Rojas and Dalton Rushing who came to the plate as the tying and go-ahead runs.
Rojas drew a walk to load the bases. Then Matsui spiked a sweeper that bounced under the chest protector of catcher Martín Maldonado, plating a run and moving the Dodgers’ other baserunners into scoring position.
Alas, Rushing struck out in a full count to end the game — denying the Dodgers the chance for a four-game sweep, but still leaving them 17-12 at the end of a daunting 29-game stretch against playoff-contending teams.
“It just shows we’re deep,” Betts said of the Dodgers’ performance over the last month, which vaulted them to a 3½-game lead in the division and five-game advantage over the Padres (40-34).
“But we still got a couple months to go, and just have to keep playing good Dodger baseball.”
Over those final couple months, there will still be six games to play against the Padres — all of which will come over another two-week stretch in mid-August.
When Roberts was asked whether the emotions of these past couple series might linger until then, he offered a diplomatic response.
“I don’t know,” he said. “We’re honestly trying to win baseball games, and that’s our only goal.”
But in the visiting clubhouse, where initial X-rays on Tatis’ hand were inconclusive about the severity of his injury, the Padres didn’t seem ready to turn down the dial.
“They need to set a little candle up for Tati,” third baseman Manny Machado said of the Dodgers, “and hope that everything comes back negative.”
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