Dodgers: Manny Machado and Fernando Tatis fight amid Padres downfall is hilarious

ST LOUIS, MO - SEPTEMBER 18: Manny Machado #13 and Fernando Tatis Jr. #23 of the San Diego Padres exchange words in the dugout during the fifth inning against the St. Louis Cardinals at Busch Stadium on September 18, 2021 in St Louis, Missouri. (Photo by Jeff Curry/Getty Images)
ST LOUIS, MO - SEPTEMBER 18: Manny Machado #13 and Fernando Tatis Jr. #23 of the San Diego Padres exchange words in the dugout during the fifth inning against the St. Louis Cardinals at Busch Stadium on September 18, 2021 in St Louis, Missouri. (Photo by Jeff Curry/Getty Images)

We sure have dedicated a lot of time to talking about the San Diego Padres. No, they’re not living “rent-free” in our heads, it’s just too funny watching their second-half slide become worse … and worse … and worse.

Looking back, this team and their fanbase were convinced they were winning the NL West by taking down the “rival” Los Angeles Dodgers.

However, they didn’t account for the San Francisco Giants’ unlikely surge (actually, nobody did), nor did it cross their mind that every single offseason move would work out in their favor.

Oh, and they didn’t seem to think choking late in the season would happen, either!

Though there are some seasoned vets on this roster that have seen plenty of October innings (Manny Machado, Yu Darvish, Blake Snell and Eric Hosmer) … there are a lot of young players who haven’t been in this position.

One of them is obviously Fernando Tatis Jr., who is just 22 years old, and he went at it with Machado in the dugout on Saturday night.

Dodgers fans watching the Padres fight as they choke away their season is amazing.

The Twitter detectives were out in full force acting as if they knew exactly how to diagnose this encounter. Whatever it was, it didn’t look good! Whether they were actually fighting or Machado was playing the “big brother” figure to help an inexperienced player like Tatis understand the stakes, it resulted in the Padres’ seventh loss in their last 10 games as they fell further out of the NL Wild Card picture.

In the fifth inning, Tatis struck out looking and began to argue the call with the home plate umpire, which resulted in manager Jayce Tingler coming out of the dugout to step in and fall on the sword so Tatis didn’t get ejected in a game with massive playoff implications.

Per ESPN, “Machado shouted and cursed at Tatis, telling him ‘it’s not about you’ and ‘you go play baseball,’ after everything went down.

https://twitter.com/MLBONFOX/status/1439412525884264451?s=20

Then, three innings later, the Cardinals stole the lead in the bottom of the eighth with a clutch two-run homer and gained another game on the Pads with just two weeks to go in the season.

Will this tense moment light a fire under them for the rest of the way and save their season? Maybe. But probably not! This incident coinciding with their near-two-month meltdown only adds fuel to the critics’ fire.

As for Dodgers fans? It adds more laughs to this 2021 comedy that is the San Diego Padres.