Dodgers on brink of elimination after Padres take Game 3 of NLDS

SAN DIEGO — It’s October, time for chills and frights.

And the Dodgers are experiencing deja boo.

A third consecutive first-round exit could be one day away after the San Diego Padres scored six times in the second inning against Walker Buehler – aided and abetted by poor defense by the Dodgers – then held on to their advantage to beat the Dodgers, 6-5, in Game 3 of their National League Division Series on Tuesday night.

The Padres lead the best-of-five series, two games to one, and will have a chance to close out the Dodgers at Petco Park for the second time in the past three Octobers. The Dodgers are 1-3 in their past four elimination games, having staved it off in Game 5 of the 2021 NL Championship Series before losing the next game.

Game 3 was fought on a razor’s edge. The Dodgers made it a one-run game in the third inning with a grand slam by Teoscar Hernandez. But the Padres used their store-bought (through trade deadline acquisitions) bullpen to hold the Dodgers to just one baserunner over the final six innings.

The memory of Jurickson Profar’s home run robbery in Game 2 still fresh in his mind, Mookie Betts couldn’t believe his 0-for-22 postseason slump was over when he sent a fly ball into the left field seats in the first inning. Profar leaped and reached over the wall but this time the ball went off his glove and he came up empty.

Betts had peeled off near second base and was heading back to the dugout when third-base coach Dino Ebel and the umpires convinced Betts he really had hit a home run.

That sent Buehler to the mound with a 1-0 lead – making him the first Dodgers starting pitcher to take the mound with a lead at any point in a postseason game since Tyler Anderson in Game 4 of the 2022 NLDS against the Padres.

It didn’t last. The Dodgers’ defense collapsed around Buehler in the third inning.

After a Manny Machado single, Freddie Freeman went to his knees to stop Jackson Merrill’s hard ground ball to his right. But he tried to throw from his knees and hit Machado in the back of his shoulder.

With runners at the corners now, Xander Bogaerts hit a slow ground ball near second base. Shortstop Miguel Rojas fielded it and made an uncharacteristically poor decision, trying to skip over second base and turn a double play. He didn’t get either out and a run scored.

David Peralta followed with a two-run double. Kyle Higashioka drove in another run with a sacrifice fly and Fernando Tatis Jr. landed the big blow – a two-out, two-run home run.

Tatis’ homer (his third in the past two games) was one of five balls Padres hitters put in play after Buehler got two strikes in the count. Buehler’s inability to finish off hitters has been an issue throughout his comeback from Tommy John surgery.

A Petco Park record crowd of 47,744 could be heard in Tijuana at that point and cameras caught Buehler venting his frustrations in the dugout, throwing his glove into the bench and giving a trash can a WWE-worthy body slam.

The therapy session worked. Buehler stayed in and put up zeroes over the next three innings.

And all the loud noises might have inspired the offense. Rojas, Shohei Ohtani and Betts led off the third inning with consecutive singles – although Rojas had to leave the game after aggravating the adductor strain he has been playing with.

After Freeman flew out, Hernandez got a hanging slider from Padres starter Michael King and sent it over the center field wall for a grand slam (only the sixth postseason grand slam in franchise history).

The next 16 Dodgers went down in order against King, Jeremiah Estrada, Jason Adam and Tanner Scott – who faced Ohtani for the third time in the three NLDS games in the eighth inning and struck him out for the third time.

Since his home run and single in Game 1, Ohtani has gone 1 for 10 with six strikeouts.

More to come on this story.