The Padres are getting louder

The San Diego Padres have spent most of their 55-year existence being inoffensive. This achievement was the franchise's greatest success, aside from the dizzying heights of Benito Santiagomania. From their fashion (the all-too-maligned and undeniably distinctive color palette) to their cramped geographic location (surrounded by the Dodgers, Angels, Diamondbacks, the Mexican border and the Pacific Ocean) to their average finish (76-86, 19 games behind) . ), the Padres have largely avoided everyone.

But not anymore, and here is some anecdotal evidence:

Yes, that's Manny Machado running far from the baseline to use his head to provoke and even exacerbate a missed throw by Los Angeles first baseman Freddie Freeman. That happened Tuesday at the start of San Diego's six-run rally that won Game 3 of this National League Division Series and in one fell swoop landed the Padres in the unusual role of loud neighbor and giant-killer. If they beat the Dodgers on Wednesday and clinch the series, Major League Baseball's marketing department will close their laptops and head for the nearest open window. A league prepared to sell Shohei Ohtani to an audience that is already buying him will instead be allowed to dress up Machado, Fernando Tatis Jr., Jackson Merrill, Jurickson Profar and Kyle Higashioka.

But before anyone jumps into the big gravitational wave, something strange: in a series that has gone from routine to electrifying to hyperkinetic thanks to incoming projectiles And Outside the stands, Game 4 promises us a new twist – both teams are not in the starting lineup. The Padres will only take their best, Dylan Cease, off for three days. This is almost never a good idea, even if, as in this case, the starter in question only lasted 3 1/3 innings in his previous turn. The Dodgers, for their part, will be without a starter at all – the team that seems to begin each new season with a historic abundance of starters could end this season with a bullpen game. You can only make a prediction about today's result if you press the button, and only if you are drunk.

But we know that. The Padres are finally ready and primed to become baseball's loudest neighbor, the people you never paid much attention to who are now grabbing you by the eyelids and demanding you pay attention. It can be difficult to pay attention when the opponent is a leviathan-powered giant, but a 2-1 lead is hard to ignore.

The Padres still have to complete the deal, of course, and a team with just two World Series appearances that spanned just nine games, eight of which went for the other player, has no right to assume anything. That's especially true for tonight, which from a distance looks like an all-out battle. But despite their cultivated historical anonymity, the Padres have brought their attitude as well as their talent and their money to the challenge, putting it all together into a compelling must-see film. Machado's left turn from game one to game two is a small thing, but between that, Tatis' moves, Profar's hidden ball trick and Merrill's barely legal insouciance, the Padres dare to be annoying. In doing so, they livened up October in a way they rarely have. Admittedly, this isn't a huge hurdle for them considering they've missed the playoffs in 47 of those 55 years. But the only thing they can win now is what's in front of them, so those 47 not-very-close misses don't matter much.

Game 3 wasn't just about Machado's devilish sense of direction (the game was, to be fair, legal) or Tatis' debate-shattering home run. Despite the final score of 6:5, it was a pitching triumph. Teoscar Hernandez's grand slam in the third inning got the Dodgers back into a game they had seemingly put away from an inning earlier, but the Dodgers added just one baserunner in their subsequent 21 at-bats, a two-out single by nearly peglegged Freddie Freeman in the eighth inning, which led to a pinch-runner (Chris Taylor), a new pitcher (closer Robert Suarez) and finally an infield popup from Hernandez. Michael King escaped the grisly third inning by retiring the last eight players he faced, and relievers Jeremiah Estrada, Jason Adam, Tanner Scott and Suarez were near-perfect support.

The Padres' story doesn't deserve to be told yet, because no one gets a poetic depilation without at least making it through the division series, but it should be noted here that these Padres weren't created by politeness and wearing brown business suits – and yes, the initials are intentionally the same as the usual, diaper-inspired description of their uniforms — but because they have one owner: the late Peter Seidler, who decided to bring the Padres out of their closet. He entrusted that work to a general manager in AJ Preller, who repeatedly advocated for players who normally wouldn't be interested in signing with the league's resident monument to invisibility. Machado and Tatis have long-term deals worth more than $300 million, Xander Bogaerts signed a $280 million deal, Juan Soto could have had one but chose the Yankees as a stopover until his own free agency, and Cease and Scott were brought into the roster Bold layouts to bolster a pitching staff that had only recently been Yu Darvish, and then a dismal wait for Darvish's turn again. The Padres spent little money heading into 2022 until Seidler decided he couldn't take it and was willing to jump for a save while he could.

Unfortunately for him, he didn't make it, but that decision has been heard everywhere this offseason. He took the big step with a team that had previously avoided the concept like the plague. The Padres were in baseball's class of misfit toys with Montreal (now Washington after the Padres threatened to move there), Seattle (now Milwaukee) and Kansas City, and now they're on the verge of, well, something. Whatever it is, it promises to be loud and allow for lots of pitch changes.