City, fans revel in return to playoffs
SAN DIEGO — The Padres converged from all directions and noticed the same thing when postseason baseball returned here this weekend with fans in the ballpark for the first time since 2006.
On his drive to Petco Park for Game 3 of this division series against the Los Angeles Dodgers on Friday, San Diego first baseman Wil Myers said he could feel the energy.
“I saw a bunch of Padres fans, and I didn't see any Dodger blue,” said Myers, who, as the longest-tenured player on this San Diego team, has endured plenty of evenings in which Dodgers denizens driving south far outnumbered Padres partisans in the seats.
Second baseman Jake Cronenworth, who lives downtown, heard more than his usual share of “Go, Padres!” calls from fans as he zipped along on his scooter through the lively Gaslamp Quarter en route to the field. And third baseman Manny Machado was given a heads-up during a haircut on Thursday's off day.
“My barber Ramon let me know, ‘Hey, the city's kind of going crazy,'” Machado said, adding, “The city's been waiting a long time for this.”
By the time the Padres edged the Dodgers, 2-1, Friday night to position themselves for one of the biggest October surprises in history, a city without a championship in any of the four major North American professional men's sports was dreaming bigger than ever.
Friday's sellout crowd of 45,137 was boisterous
from the start and, thanks to Cronenworth's runscoring single in the first, Trent Grisham's solo homer in the fourth and what has become the team's customary lockdown pitching in this postseason, the party threatened to rage into next week.
Chants of “Beat LA! Beat LA!” thundered around the ballpark as
closer Josh Hader galloped through a 1-2-3 ninth inning, bouncing around as if by laser pointer. The Padres haven't played in a League Championship Series since 1998 and now had two chances to win just one game to return again.
This time, the fans aren't reselling their tickets to Dodgers fans.
“This was all Padre fans out there,” Machado said Friday. “It was all yellow. It was awesome to see.”