Dodgers go back to back in seventh to tie up and punch back at Padres

Ryan Weathers of the San Diego Padres matched up pretttttty well with Dodgers ace Walker Buehler in the opener of a four-game rivalry battle on Thursday night at Chavez Ravine.

Through 5.2 innings, he held the Dodger bats dormant, with most of the offense in the game coming off the bat of Padres slugger Trent Grisham.

Buehler (through seven innings) had been his typical, ace-like self. Unfortunately, the young Weathers had been iconically great.

So it goes…until it suddenly stopped, because sometimes the Dodgers attack when you least expect it.

Reliever Emilio Pagan entered for the seventh, and the balls immediately began exiting the yard.

First, AJ Pollock rocketed one into the night in deep left field. Perhaps inspired to do the same, the 26th man on the roster, Sheldon Neuse, responded in kind with a game-tying moonshot.

The Los Angeles Dodgers went back to back on the Padres.

New ballgame, who dis?

Padres-Dodgers brought with it all the hype in the world entering the 2021 MLB season, and the first iteration lived up to its billing in San Diego this past weekend. Tempers flared in extra innings in the first game, in which the Dodgers eventually ran and hid from their competition in the final frame. In Game 2, Clayton Kershaw and Jurickson Profar did some screaming before LA ultimately pocketed another victory.

The third game? Eh, didn’t watch. Trevor Bauer got some nice barbs in on social media, that’s all we remember.

Briefly, we thought maybe the Dodgers would go quietly into the night in this particular opener, though, which would’ve made home sweet home a little less sweet. We got fooled, though! Apparently, we forgot how insanely competent and deep this team really is.

In a lineup replete with Smith, Seager, Turner and a returning Mookie Betts, it was Pollock and Neuse who woke things up. Imagine.

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