Padres obviously terrified of Dodgers fans with feeble NLDS ticket policy

The San Diego Padres controversially upset the 101-win New York Mets in the National League Wild Card Series and bought themselves an NLDS matchup with the Los Angeles Dodgers. For every Padres fan, the potential of knocking the Dodgers out of the playoffs is probably better than winning the World Series itself.

Los Angeles has to be confident with its chances heading into this NLDS matchup, though. The Dodgers dominated the regular-season slate against the Padres and have for the better part of two years. Not only that, but LA swept San Diego in the 2020 NLDS.

Home-field advantage also plays a huge role as Games 1, 2 and 5 will be played at Dodger Stadium. Games 3 and 4 will be played at Petco Park, which has often been called Dodger Stadium South. As a result, the Dodgers will not only have a massive advantage at home, but will likely have at least a 50-50 split at the Padres’ home field.

The Padres organization knows this and is pulling out all the stops to keep it from happening. San Diego has enacted a rather weak ticket policy that limits the sale of NLDS tickets to Dodgers fans.

No northern Orange County, no Northern Riverside County, no San Berardino County, and most importantly, no Los Angeles County.

We have seen teams do this before, most recently the Los Angeles Rams in the NFC Championship Game against the San Francisco 49ers. How did that pan out? SoFi Stadium was a sea of red, with it being at least an 80-20 split between 49ers fans to Rams fans.

The Padres likely just convinced even more Dodgers fans to show up in San Diego

Talk about digging your own grave. First of all, Dodgers fans can still buy tickets in resale markets. Padres fans can beg each other all they want on social media not to sell their tickets to Dodgers fans, but at the end of the day, there are going to be a lot of fans that see a big profit reselling.

And there are going to be a lot of Dodgers fans who are willing to pay high prices to travel down to San Diego and stick it to the Padres.

Not only that, but the Padres are underestimating how many Dodgers fans are in these “approved” areas that can buy tickets. While the Padres fanbase is certainly growing, there are probably still more Dodgers fans overall in the listed counties than there are Padres fans. Those LA fans are now going to be even more motivated to show up at Petco Park.

Los Angeles does not need to enact this policy because the franchise knows that it has the best fans in the sport and they will show up without needing some sort obstacle for their opposition. Juan Soto begging Padres fans to come up to LA when his own team is taking the soft route sure is rich, isn’t it?

Ultimately, LA fans are hoping this series only sees one game played at Petco Park and that the Dodgers are celebrating at the end of it. That would entail a sweep for the Boys in Blue, and nothing would be better than seeing 30,000 Dodgers fans going crazy for a sweep in San Diego.

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