TATIS BACK IN TIME TO FACE DODGERS
Padres spark plug likely to be activated in time for tonight’s contest vs. NL West leaders
He’s coming back. They’re coming to town. It doesn’t get this big at Petco Park very often, not in April or any other month.
“I know it’s going to be rocking, because these are the best series of the year,” said Joe Musgrove, the new Padres pitcher and lifelong Padres fan.
The Padres host the Dodgers this weekend for the first three of the 19 games between them that will play a big role in determining whether the Dodgers win their ninth straight National League West title or the Padres get past the team that has repeatedly run them over the past eight years.
“We’re going to face these guys quite a bit this season, and we expect to see them late … when the games matter the most,” Musgrove said. “I think this is going to be a tone-setter for how these series are going to (unfold) the rest of the season.”
How fortunate, then, that it is almost certain shortstop Fernando Tatis Jr. will return tonight from the 10-day absence necessitated after he dislocated his shoulder April 5.
“We’re optimistic he’s got a good chance to be ready to play (today),” manager Jayce Tingler said after Tatis hit live pitching Thursday for the second time in three days.
The Dodgers, for their part, say they hope he’s back.
“We want to play them at their best,” Dodgers right fielder Mookie Betts said.
“We want to be at our best. I think that’s what makes it fun, so I’m just glad he’s not seriously hurt. … He gets
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back in their lineup, it will be fun.”
It seems it should be just that, which it hasn’t been very often for the Padres.
They had their moments last year but still lost the season series for the eighth year in a row.
So to call this a rivalry just yet might be premature.
But the Padres are no longer the soft landing against whom you debut someone, as the Dodgers did Dustin May in 2019. They are the team against whom the Dodgers will start their top three pitchers.
“I think you can read into it any way you want,” Dodgers manager Dave Roberts said when asked about the schedule maneuvers his team made to line up his top three starting pitchers for this weekend. “But I think making sure guys are rested and feeling good going into a particular series is the ultimate goal.”
The Padres will start rookie left-hander Ryan Weathers tonight, because he is the best option to at least temporarily take the injured Adrian Morejon’s spot in the rotation. The final two games, they will throw Yu Darvish and Blake Snell, the two pitchers they acquired in the offseason, essentially to give themselves chance to compete with the Dodgers.
The Padres will face Walker Buehler tonight, Clayton Kershaw on Saturday and Trevor Bauer on Sunday. Bauer was the prize of the free agent market, and the Dodgers all but acknowledged they were basically countering the Padres’ trades for Darvish and Snell by giving Bauer $102 million over the next three seasons.
Tingler said he would not start diving into preparation for the Dodgers until the flight home from Pittsburgh on Thursday night. But he was pleased his offense got back to hitting before the gauntlet ahead.
“We’re going to see some really good arms,” he said. “It’s going to be a really good test for us.”
That is about as much as the Padres will allow for now — that they are still trying to measure up to the defending World Series champions.
Over the past eight seasons, which just happens to be the stretch in which no other team has won the National League West, the Dodgers have feasted on the
Padres. Of their 146 games, including the three-game sweep in the National League Division Series this past October, the Dodgers have won 97.
“It’s different heading in,” Padres first baseman Eric Hosmer said of this year. “Obviously, having a little history with them in the postseason last year, I think that will maybe spice things up a little bit. But they’re the best team in baseball. They’ve earned that right. It will be a good test to see where we’re at. We can’t get too high or get too low no matter what happens in this series.
“We still understand there are going to be a lot of battles. We’ve got to come ready to play, see where we’re at.”