Padres Watch Dragon Rise Again As L.A. Overcomes NLDS Deficit to End Their Season

The Padres, once up 2-1 in the National League Division Series, watched it all slip away Friday, as the Dodgers again gained the upper hand, winning 2-0 to end the Friars’ season.

They sent Yu Darvish to the mound in a Game 5 matchup the Japanese stars in the game had wanted badly — against the Dodgers’ Yoshinobu Yamamoto.

The Padres’ confidence paid off in one respect, as Darvish gave up just two runs over 6.2 innings. But Yamamoto, who went five innings, and the L.A. bullpen bested the Padre veteran, giving up just two hits and retiring 19 hitters in a row to end the game and take the best-of-five series.

Luis Arraez and Kyle Higashioka got those hits, both singles, in the third, but Fernando Tatis Jr. grounded into a double play to end the inning.

No Padre reached base again. Tatis, Jurickson Profar and Manny Machado went a combined 0 for 10 in the game.

And Tatis, blazing hot in the series, made the final out, as Dodger reliever Blake Treinen induced him to hit a grounder to Enrique Hernández at third. In the first five games of the postseason, Tatis went 10-for-18 (.556) with four homers; in his last two, both shutout losses, he had just one hit in eight at-bats.

San Diego went scoreless for the final 24 innings of the series, dropping the last two games after taking a 2-1 lead on Tuesday at Petco Park.

Manager Mike Shildt said “stunning is appropriate” to describe the way the series ended. He and his team, he added, are “disappointed that we weren’t able to get to an ultimate goal that we all shared.”

An additional heartbreak – the Padres had hoped to have a deep playoff run in memory of Peter Seidler, the team owner who died almost 11 months ago. He also famously talked about how the Padres wished to slay “the dragon” up the freeway – which they did months later in 2022, eliminating an L.A. team that had won 111 games in the regular season.

But not this year. It will be the Dodgers going on to face the Mets in NL Championship Series starting Sunday.

L.A. did it thanks to Hernández, who had a booming two-out homer off Darvish in the second. But the Padre righty set off on a streak of his own, mowing down 14 Dodger batters in a row. Teoscar Hernández, though, chased Darvish with a homer in the seventh to increase the Dodger lead to 2-0.

Game 5 also was a milestone for baseball. Darvish and Yamamoto were the first Japanese-born starting pitchers to square off in major league playoff history.

“I thought Yu was magnificent again. Had them off balance. Couple of swings got him. Other than that, he was really good,” Shildt said.

As for Yamamoto – who the Padres knocked around this year, the pitcher’s first for the Dodgers after playing in Japan’s Nippon Professional League – Shildt said simply, Game 5 was the “best we’ve seen him.”

The Padres were the hottest team in baseball after the All-Star Break, and their surge led them not only to claim the NL’s top wild-card spot, but to push the NL West race to the final days of the season.

But the team was barely over .500 leading up to the break, with an inconsistent offense and bullpen gaps that General Manager A.J. Preller did his part at the trade deadline to fill.

And they caught fire in July – Manny Machado heated up, Dylan Cease pitched a no-hitter and Jackson Merrill not only helped the club, but inserted himself into the Rookie-of-the-Year race.

“Man, I enjoyed my time this year playing baseball with this group,” Tatis said.

They did all that despite losing Darvish, Tatis, Joe Musgrove and Ha-Seong Kim for substantial stretches of the season. Facing those challenges, and succeeding, said Shildt, completing his first season as the Padre skipper, sends a message about the Padres future postseason prospects, not just in 2025, but beyond.

“It’s now part of who we are. That’s why I can feel good about moving forward,” he said.

The Associated Press contributed to this report.