Inside The Padres

Mike Shildt Shades Dodgers After Padres' Win: 'We're Going to Talk With Our Play'

Maren Angus-Coombs

Jayne Kamin-Oncea-Imagn Images
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The fans seated in the outfield pavilion at Dodger Stadium on Sunday night thought that throwing a water bottle, beer can and other debris at San Diego Padres outfielders Jurickson Profar and Fernando Tatis Jr. would rattle them.

Breaking news, it didn't

The Padres went on to crush the Dodgers, 10-2, to tie the best-of-five series up at 1-1.

“What I got out of this,” Padres manager Mike Shildt said, “is we have a bunch of dudes who showed up in front of a big, hostile crowd with stuff being thrown at them and said, ‘We’re going to talk with our play; we’re not going to back down; we’re going to elevate our game; we’re going to be together, and we’re gonna take care of business.”

During Game 2 of the National League Division Series, the Padres held a three-run lead when play was paused as umpires and stadium security intervened to calm tensions among some unruly fans in the left and right field corners.

After a lengthy delay, Yu Darvish retired the side and the Padres poured on the pressure.

“I mean, we scored, what, six runs after that? Five? Four? I don’t know,” Padres third baseman Manny Machado said with a grin. “It was six? Yeah, maybe it fired us up.”

The Padres hit four of their six home runs in the final two innings on Sunday night. Jackson Merrill and Xander Bogaerts went back-to-back in a three-run eighth inning, while Kyle Higashioka and Fernando Tatis Jr. homered in a three-run ninth, securing the blowout victory.

Tatis, who celebrated his ninth-inning home run with a dramatic bat flip, a lingering glance at his dugout, and a slow trot around the bases, responded more diplomatically than Machado when asked about the pitch that hit him earlier in the game.

“I know my boys have my back the entire time, and everybody saw it tonight,” he said. “But we’re playing baseball. It’s too early in the game to be doing stuff like that. It’s too important of a series to be throwing at guys. That’s what my baseball IQ is telling me.

“When he hit me, he just gave me more energy. My boys gave me more energy. And I know from there, we were just going to embrace that moment and take that energy and use it to play baseball the way we did tonight.”

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Maren Angus-Coombs
MAREN ANGUS-COOMBS

Maren Angus-Coombs was born in Los Angeles and raised in Nashville, Tenn. She is a graduate of Middle Tennessee State University and has been a sports writer since 2008. Despite being raised in the South, her sports obsession has always been in Los Angeles. She is currently a staff writer for the LA Sports Report Network.

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