Blake Treinen's Manny Machado heart attack felt like a new Dodgers beginning

The Game 1 winner of the Division Series advances 72% of the time, as a FOX broadcast graphic touted last night. Unfortunately, the Los Angeles Dodgers have already lived among the 28% against this very same opponent, and one false move could've vaulted the San Diego Padres back into a power position on Saturday.

Hell, they still might get there. But for one night, at least, the Dodgers danced with a fleet of familiar devils and lived to tell the tale. They saw a starting pitcher -- the ballyhooed Yoshinobu Yamamoto, no less -- get victimized by Manny Machado and fall deeply. They saw a second Padres rally steal momentum back after Shohei Ohtani's playoff arrival rocket. They saw closer Blake Treinen sneak through Donovan Solano in the bottom of the eighth, then realized en masse, "Oh, no. He's got to get us three more of these."

Typically, when a closer's 39th pitch of the game ends up in the other batter's box, that doesn't portend good things. But for Treinen on Saturday night, things went a little bit differently.

With two outs, no one on, and Tommy Edman still holding firm to a singed liner, the Dodgers got tantalizingly close to the final out so many times that one couldn't help but feel like it was destined never to arrive. With two strikes, Fernando Tatis Jr. ripped a single through the hole. With two strikes, Jurickson Profar watched bouncers and bleeders, taking his base after sucking the air of of the ballpark. And then it came down to Machado, as it always does.

He's homered off Treinen twice before. He homered off Treinen two months ago. And, Saturday night, he simply went home instead.

Dodgers closer Blake Treinen narrowly escaped Manny Machado nightmare

It's reductive to say that Shohei Ohtani's presence calmly guided Treinen's final bowling ball into Will Smith's glove safely. But, without Ohtani, the Dodgers likely wouldn't have punched back down 3-0. Without those three runs, it's doubtful they would've erased the 5-3 deficit they faced shortly thereafter. And without the trio that came home on Ohtani's cathartic canyon-shaker, Treinen would've been swimming upstream. Instead, he walked to the edge, then put one toe over the edge, then two toes, then three, then four, then found a beam to add to the edge and glided along that new beam safely.

He created something out of nothing. He stared down Machado and won. They never do this. But to win it all, they'll need to do this. Sometimes, a fresh start can mean everything.