What Did Manny Machado Say in Padres' Team Meeting That Sealed Game 2 Win Over Dodgers?

Maren Angus-Coombs | Oct 8, 2024

Jayne Kamin-Oncea-Imagn Images

For more than 10 minutes, a chaotic scene played out as San Diego Padres pitcher Yu Darvish repeatedly began and paused his warm-up routine in the seventh inning of Sunday night's 10-2 win over the Los Angeles Dodgers in Game 2 of the Nation League Division Series.

It began when Darvish prepared for his warm-up and Machado stood near third base before the bottom of the sixth inning, Flaherty and Machado engaged in another exchange of words, with Flaherty in the Dodgers' dugout and Machado by third base.

Then, it spilled onto the field and into the stands.

Left fielder Jurickson Profar was enraged with fans in the outfield pavilion seats while Fernando Tatis Jr. was fending off others in right field.

Two umpires escorted Profar to the edge of the infield grass, where he was soon joined by his teammates, including Darvish, manager Mike Shildt, and the remaining four umpires.

Just as the umpires were ready to continue the game, bottles were thrown onto the warning track in right field. Security quickly rushed onto the field to bring the Padres' outfielders off the grass for safety.

Darvish retired the next three batters, sending the Padres into the dugout where third baseman Manny Machado gathered his teammates together.

“I’ve never experienced anything like that,” Darvish said through interpreter Shingo Horie. “What I was thinking was it was important not to give up any runs in that inning. If you do that, the tendency is that sort of the game flow changes. So my mindset was just shut them down here.”

Manny Machado pulled the team together to have a meeting after everything that took place at Dodger Stadium pic.twitter.com/foU5F3GghJ

— FOX Sports: MLB (@MLBONFOX) October 7, 2024

“Just stay focused,” Machado said of his message. “Stay focused on the task at hand. We’ve got (six) outs left. Go out there and try to finish up the game and stay focused in what we need to do and accomplish. The game was far from over, so we have to go out there and continue to compete.”

Considering it was Machado involved, it's not surprising that Darvish later mentioned there were also "Some dirty words here and there.”

Despite all the chaos, the Padres were able to build on their emotions and even the best-of-five series at 1-1.

Fernando Tatis Jr. hit two home runs and scored three runs.

“Just our mindset, how we are coming out of the gate with our foot on the pedal since the beginning,” Tatis said. “That’s one thing that we have been doing since the entire year. We’re definitely not changing that and we’re just adding more pressure.”