Fernando Tatis Jr. tops big inning, Padres hold on, take NLDS lead: Takeaways

SAN DIEGO – After a 6-5 victory, the San Diego Padres are just one win away from ending the Los Angeles Dodgers' season again, and they'll get a chance to do so at home on Wednesday, perhaps on is likely to be the most intense baseball stadium of the postseason.

Mookie Betts broke out of his slump and hit a hanging shot into the left field stands for a home run in the first inning that put the Padres in an early 1-0 hole. They stormed back in the bottom of the second with the help of a hapless Dodgers defense, including two supposed double plays that failed to make it.

It started with Manny Machado veering off the baseline to take Freddie Freeman's throw to the helmet and sending the ball into left field, and it continued when Miguel Rojas tried to launch a double play alone, only to have both Pages to be late. David Peralta hit a two-run double down the line to give the Padres the lead, and Fernando Tatis Jr. hit one of the most woeful 0-2 fastballs you'll ever see on a long, long home run.

(Machado's play was legal, by the way. Rule 5.09(b)(4) refers to intentionally obstructing a thrown ball, but that assumes the runner knows where the ball actually is.)

What should have been a quiet, easy win turned crazy when the Dodgers were within a run away in the next inning. Three singles and a grand slam from Teoscar Hernández made the score 6:5 and brought his team back from the shadowy realm. All they needed was just one run. They only have one baserunner.

Mookie Betts and Manny Machado were back in the thick of things in Game 3. (Harry How/Getty Images)

Starter Michael King calmed down, and the vaunted Padres bullpen — built for exactly this kind of postseason play — completely shut down the Dodgers, allowing just a single with two outs in the eighth inning.

Game 4 is scheduled for Wednesday at 9:08 p.m. ET.

Manny Machado's heads-up baserunning enables a monster inning

The Padres trailed 1-0 after Jurickson Profar failed to rob Mookie Betts of a home run. Manny Machado led off the bottom of the second with a hit single. Four pitches later, Jackson Merrill sent a grounder to Dodgers first baseman Freddie Freeman, who caught the ball and threw it from his knees toward second base to catch Machado, the lead base runner.

Machado had other plans. When he took off first, he turned onto the edge of the infield turf and into Freeman's throwing path. The ball bounced off the back of Machado's helmet and rolled into left field. A moment later, both Machado and Merrill were safe. The Padres had Machado's alertness to thank: Unless a baserunner who passed first tries to avoid a tag, he doesn't have to stay in his so-called running lane.

A contact-heavy Padres offense capitalized in usual fashion. Xander Bogaerts reached on a fielder's choice as Machado scored the equalizer. There were still no outs when David Peralta hit a two-run double. Jake Cronenworth produced an infield single for his first hit of the postseason. Kyle Higashioka lifted a sacrifice fly to center field. Finally, two batters later, Fernando Tatis Jr. hit his third home run of the Series.

It all added up to a monster six-run inning, and it started with a heads-up game in every sense of the word.

Mookie Betts finally gets going

Betts, who opened this series hitless in six at-bats (and hitless in his last 22 playoff at-bats since the 2022 NLDS against the same Padres), looked like he had stopped his skid two nights ago. In Game 2, he faced a break ball from Padres starter Yu Darvish in the first inning and hit it into the left field corner at Dodger Stadium. He began to cheer as he rounded the bases before Jurickson Profar showed him that his joy was unfounded – he had reached over the short fence into the stands and, after a remarkable pause, revealed that he had caught the baseball.

That influenced Betts' untimely dejection Tuesday night when Betts stepped to the plate again in the first inning and lofted a Michael King breakball, sending it to Profar in left field, where the Padres outfielder again reached into the stands.

Only after Betts turned back toward the Dodgers dugout — and third base coach Dino Ebel yelled at him to keep circling the bases — did Betts notice the ball bounce off Profar's glove and into the stands for a leadoff home run was thrown.

Betts scored another on his next at-bat, setting up Hernández's grand slam that put them back in the game.

Michael King falters but recovers to get the job done

When the countdown was full at the start of the first round, Michael King threw a sweeper to Betts. It was understandable. In the regular season, Betts batted .121 and hit .242 against sweepers; Virtually no other pitch, with the exception of Matt Waldron's knuckleball, which only had a small sample, gave him as much trouble. And regardless of the type of pitch, Betts hadn't had a postseason hit in two years.

Still, this particular pitch hit higher than King would have liked. Betts managed to give the Dodgers an early lead.

Two innings later, after three consecutive singles loaded the bases, King again paid for an elevated sweeper. Hernández fired it over the centerfield wall, abruptly cutting the Padres' lead to one. The volume of the recent record crowd at Petco Park, which had been out of control by the end of the second, dropped a few dozen decibels.

However, the home fans would return to their old level. King recovered and retired each of the last eight batters he faced. A shut down Padres bullpen took the lead early in the sixth, and it immediately felt like a smart decision; Jeremiah Estrada knocked Hernández to the ground.

In the end, King emerged victorious. He didn't resemble the ace he was in last week's Wild Card Series opener against Atlanta, but he showed enough grit that the Padres can continue to feel good about their prized right-hander.

Buehler was seething as he descended the dugout steps after the second inning. Instead of barking, he threw his glove away. He grabbed something from the top of the dugout and hurled it to the ground. The outburst summed up the insane defensive framework that preceded it.

Chants of “Manny!” roared as Machado stepped to the plate for his first at-bat. It got so loud that Buehler pressed his cap to his ear to catch the PitchCom signal, triggering a pitch clock violation. After Machado scored a single, a disastrous period began. Freddie Freeman hit a ground ball from Jackson Merrill, but his throw to second bounced off Machado – whose path had veered onto the infield grass – and into the outfield.

When Xander Bogaerts hit a chopper against Miguel Rojas, the shortstop (who had suffered a torn adductor) tried to get to second base himself instead of turning it over. Everyone was safe. By the time David Peralta hit a double down the line past a flying Freeman to give San Diego the lead, the damage had already been done.

Things got worse. Jake Cronenworth's infield single against Rojas extended the Dodgers' misery before Tatis continued his October assault on pitching with a two-run throw that seemed to completely unravel the evening.

In a series where the Padres stifled the Dodgers with staggering defense, the second-inning breakup could be the Dodgers' undoing.

(Photo by Fernando Tatis Jr.: Daniel Shirey / Getty Images)