Dodgers must back up 'rival' talk as surging Giants threaten LA with 2021 flashbacks

The Dodgers set off some (kind of petty) fireworks ahead of and during their series against the Padres this week — the teams' first (but certainly not last) meeting of the season. Max Muncy kicked things off by saying the Dodgers' only real rival was the Giants, and then Will "Jurickson Profar is irrelevant" Smith dismissed questions about the stakes being higher for a Dodgers-Padres series, saying "it was just another game in June."

Dave Roberts did disagree with Muncy on the rivalry question, but he also treated the second game of the series like Game 5 of the NLCS, when he left Brent Honeywell Jr. on the mound for 4 2/3 innings to get rocked by the Mets. Only this time, Matt Sauer was even worse in his own 4 2/3, giving up nine runs before the Dodgers entrusted Kiké Hernández to pitch through the rest of the game. Roberts clearly didn't care if the Dodgers lost that game. He said afterwards, "It really doesn't have any extra impact."

And the Dodgers won the series anyway, with wins in the opener and finale, so it didn't really matter that they punted the intervening game.

However, their upcoming stretch could be a different story. From June 13-19, LA will host both the Giants and Padres at Dodger Stadium. The Giants are only one game behind the Dodgers in the NL West, and the Padres are back by two more. There's a chance that the standings could look very different by the end of next week.

Dodgers' upcoming series vs. Giants could flip the tight NL West race

The Dodgers and Giants certainly don't have warm and fuzzy feelings toward each other — just last year, the Giants ran a promotion at one of their games against the Dodgers where they gave out 15,000 Mickey Mouse ears — but the Giants also haven't been competitive since 2017 (with 2021 as the weird outlier). In the meantime, the Padres have emerged as a powerhouse and the only consistent threat to the Dodgers' dominance in the division.

But Logan Webb is pitching his heart out, Jung Hoo Lee is bouncing back well from an injury that cut his rookie season short, and Matt Chapman is making his six-year, $151 million contract extension look worth the while. The Giants are 7-3 over their last 10 and have persevered through some costly injuries and underperformance.

Hopefully, the Dodgers took advantage of their rest day on Thursday, because they're going to need to be firing on all cylinders over the next week if they want to pull away from the Giants and Padres.