Dodgers waste clutch blast in massive NLDS Game 3 missed opportunity vs Padres

If the first three innings of Game 3 of the Dodgers-Padres NLDS were three of the most thrilling innings you've ever seen, then the last four and a half were among the most disappointing. Mookie Betts started the scoring almost immediately with a solo blast in the first to break an 0-for-22 hitless streak in postseason play and throw the first punch for LA, a team with a lot to prove coming out of Game 2.

But then Walker Buehler had the worst single inning of his life. Three Padres runs scored before he could induce a single out (and that first out was a sac fly that scored the fourth run), and Fernando Tatis Jr. capped it all off with a two-run blast to make the score 6-1. After Buehler got out of the inning, he went back to the dugout and immediately destroyed a trash can.

However, the Dodgers punched back quickly in the top of the third, with three consecutive singles to load the bases with no outs. And then Teoscar Hernández solidified the fact that he should be a Dodger for a long time with the grandest of slams to put LA within one.

Michael King got his last two outs easily enough after that, but the grand slam was more than enough to give Dodgers fans hope that this one would go their way.

But no. The Dodgers did the least surprising thing possible: they lost all momentum and went scoreless through the next six innings to lose the game and give the edge to the Padres in the series.

Dodgers take infuriating loss to Padres in NLDS Game 3 despite Teoscar Hernández grand slam

Freddie Freeman was the only Dodger who managed to get a hit at all after the third inning, but otherwise King and the Padres bullpen took LA's lineup down in order every. Single. Time.

We're running out of ways to say that the Dodgers look dead in the water. They got the clutchest of moments, only the sixth Dodgers postseason grand slam ever hit, and it did nothing for the rest of the lineup. No one's saying they weren't trying, but...they didn't really look like they were trying! (Shohei Ohtani did hit a fly ball deep to the warning track once; we'll give him that).

Game 3 was the perfect opportunity for them to give the Padres and the crowd at Petco, who were incessantly chanting "Beat LA" through all eight and a half innings, a piece of their minds after the mess on Sunday.

But no. They allowed themselves to get sliced through by the Padres bullpen and put the series in the Padres' hands with a potentially decisive Game 4 in San Diego.

Right now, the Dodgers are playing like they want to get on with their offseason vacations. If something like this happens again on Wednesday, that's exactly what they're going to get.