Corey Seager on Friday hit a tiebreaking, two-run homer on Tim Hill’s first pitch of the 12th inning as the Los Angeles Dodgers beat the San Diego Padres 11-6 night in a tense, entertaining first matchup this season between the National League West rivals who have visions of deep playoff runs.
It took 4 hours, 57 minutes to decide this one, which ended early in the morning.
The benches emptied after Dodgers reliever Dennis Santana hit Jorge Mateo with a pitch to put runners on the corners with one out in the 10th.
Photo: AFP
Trent Grisham walked to load the bases, but Santana struck out Fernando Tatis Jr to escape.
The teams met for the first time since the Dodgers swept San Diego in their Division Series last year en route to winning the World Series.
The Padres responded by beefing up their rotation, trading for Yu Darvish, Blake Snell and Joe Musgrove. Darvish and Snell are scheduled to pitch in the final two games of the three-game series.
Photo: AFP
Seager homered to center field, his second, with Mookie Betts on second base after making the last out of the 11th.
The Dodgers added three more runs in the inning, including a sacrifice fly by reliever David Price (1-0) that was caught by Musgrove, who took over in left field after the Padres ran out of relievers.
Left fielder Jurickson Profar moved to second base as infielder Jake Cronenworth came in to pitch. He got the final two outs, including striking out Betts to end the inning.
Hill (0-2) allowed five runs, three earned, and four hits in 1-1/3 innings.
“I’m very hesitant to get ahead of things, but it was like a playoff game,” Dodgers manager Dave Roberts said. “They played a lot of guys, we played a lot of guys, the intensity was there. Man, I can look up and down my lineup card and everyone contributed. It’s kind of like a playoff game. The crowd was great.”
“I’m just spent emotionally, just proud of everybody. We responded, they answered back, they kept fighting, we kept fighting,” he said.
Price, who on Thursday against Colorado got his first save since Game 7 of the 2008 American League Championship Series, said that it was “a fun rivalry to be part of... Once you get to that first bench-clearing whatever happens, that’s when it kind of goes to the next level.”
After the Dodgers went ahead 6-5 in the ninth when Justin Turner singled in Betts, the Padres tied it with two outs in the bottom half when Eric Hosmer singled home Manny Machado.
San Diego had tied the game at 5-5 on Profar’s opposite-field, two-run double to left in the eighth inning off Corey Knebel.
Tatis returned from the 10-day injured list in a big way when he homered to center field off Walker Buehler for a 2-1 lead in the fifth, but Tatis’ throwing error from shortstop contributed to the Dodgers scoring three runs in the sixth on two singles, a walk and a wild pitch.
With runners on first and third and two outs, Tatis made a nice diving stop of Chris Taylor’s RBI infield single and his throw to second went past Cronenworth, who was late covering the bag.
Max Muncy scored on the error and Taylor scored on Keone Kela’s wild pitch for a 4-2 lead.
Zach McKinstry hit an RBI double in the eighth for a 5-3 advantage.
Padres rookie Luis Campusano hit an RBI single off Buehler in the second and Dodgers rookie Luke Raley tied it with one out in the fifth when he hit his first homer, off Dan Altavilla.
In other games on Friday, it was:
‧ Nationals 1, Diamondbacks 0
‧ Yankees 2, Rays 8
‧ Athletics 3, Tigers 0
‧ Mariners 6, Astros 5
‧ Angels 10, Twins 3
‧ Phillies 8, Cardinals 2
‧ Cubs 2, Braves 5
‧ Marlins 4, Giants 1
‧ Rangers 2, Orioles 5
‧ Reds 10, Indians 3
‧ Brewers 1, Pirates 6
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