Dodger Stadium fans toss balls and trash on field, interrupt Padres’ 10-2 win that evens NLDS

AP Sports Writer

LOS ANGELES (AP) — Fans threw baseballs in the direction of San Diego left fielder Jurickson Profar and then tossed trash that caused a lengthy delay before the Padres beat the Los Angeles Dodgers 10-2 on Sunday night to even their NL Division Series at a game apiece.

Yu Darvish limited the Dodgers’ powerful offense to one run and three hits over seven innings and Fernando Tatis Jr. went deep twice as the Padres tied the postseason record of six homers.

David Peralta and Jackson Merrill each hit two-run homers, and a hobbled Xander Bogaerts and Kyle Higashioka had solo shots. At 21, Merrill became the youngest Padres player with a postseason homer.

“Six of them is a special treat for us,” Merrill said.

The delay in the middle of the seventh inning led to a 12-minute gap between pitches and occurred as two balls were thrown from the stands in the direction of Profar. He chased after one of them but a security officer got to it first. Trash was strewn on the warning track in right near the Padres bullpen.

“I feel like when it went over the line, when they started throwing stuff onto the field,” Tatis said. “I felt like that should not be happening in a big league game.”

There was continuous booing by the sellout crowd of 54,119 — the largest at Dodger Stadium this season.

“The bear’s been poked for a while. It’s been poked previous years, decades,” Merrill said. “We just finally got the firepower, we finally got the team to take it to them. They’re a good team. I love the way they play. They give us a battle every time. They don’t stop.”

Security rushed onto the field as Padres manager Mike Shildt and his team huddled in shallow left. They were joined by the umpiring crew. Security appeared to be trying to identify potential perpetrators in the crowd.

“We were looking for a higher security presence out in the left-field corner to ensure that that behavior didn’t continue,” crew chief Dan Bellino told a pool reporter, “and to make sure that if anybody did throw anything out on the field they would be identified immediately and removed from the stadium.”

The Dodgers did not immediately respond when asked whether there had been any arrests.

Manny Machado gathered his teammates in the dugout to boost them before the game resumed.

The Dodgers have lost four straight Game 2s and seven of their last eight playoff games.

The best-of-five series shifts to San Diego on Tuesday.

Dodgers starter Jack Flaherty hit Tatis with a pitch in the sixth inning, and Profar exchanged words with Dodgers catcher Will Smith.

“There’s too much of an important series just to be throwing at guys,” Tatis said. “When he hit me, he just gave me more energy. My boys gave me more energy.”

The Dodgers thought they’d tied it in the bottom of the first. Mookie Betts hit a deep fly to the corner and left field umpire Adrian Johnson circled his arm signaling a home run.

But Profar battled the outstretched arms of fans, reeling in the ball on the webbing of his glove. He barely reacted to his spectacular grab, hopping away backward as he stared at the astonished fans.

“That was hilarious,” Merrill said of Profar trolling the fans. “He’s having fun. He was playing like a little kid and I love that.”

Later, there were verbal exchanges between fans and Profar.

The Dodgers lost first baseman Freddie Freeman, who left after five innings with discomfort in his sprained right ankle. He struck out and flied out in two at-bats. Freeman got hurt on Sept. 26 and has fought to be healthy enough to make the playoffs.

Just like in Game 1, the Padres took a quick 3-0 lead. Tatis went deep in the first off Flaherty and former Dodger Peralta added a two-out, two-run shot in the second.

Darvish struck out three and walked two against his former team. He shut down fellow Japanese Shohei Ohtani, who struck out and grounded out twice against his friend.

“I was trying to see how he reacted to some of the pitches that I was throwing,” Darvish said through an interpreter. “On top of that, I was trying to keep him off-balance by holding a little bit longer. I think it worked pretty well.”

Ohtani finished 0 for 4 with another strikeout. Mookie Betts was hitless for a sixth consecutive playoff game.

Pitching not far from where he grew up in Burbank, Flaherty gave up four runs and five hits in 5 1/3 innings, becoming the first Dodgers starter to reach the sixth inning of a postseason game since Max Scherzer in 2021.

Max Muncy homered for the Dodgers in the ninth.

UP NEXT

RHP Walker Buehler will start for Dodgers in Game 3 and RHP Michael King will go for the Padres. King was dominant against Atlanta in the NL Wild Card Series, striking out 12 in seven scoreless innings. King faced the Dodgers four times this season, tossing 12 innings of shutout ball in two of the outings while getting hit hard in the other two.

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