SAN DIEGO — Nights like these, when the weekend arrives and the Los Angeles Dodgers are in town, don’t often feel like a home-field advantage for the San Diego Padres. So many Dodgers fans make the 125-mile drive south that Petco Park is often called “Dodger Stadium South” when the two teams match up. But that wasn’t the case on Friday and Saturday. Petco Park, which had waited 16 years to host fans for a postseason game, was stuffed with locals who rooted hard for the Padres and filled this ballpark with “Beat L.A.” chants that at times felt deafening. And when Josh Hader recorded the final out, capping a thrilling 5-3 victory in Game 4 of the National League Division Series, the place erupted in joy.
The Padres — the same Padres who have spent almost their entire existence chasing the decorated franchise to the north — are advancing to their first NL Championship Series since 1998. They’ll face the upstart Philadelphia Phillies and gain home-field advantage for the first time in these playoffs. The Padres went on the road to beat the 101-win New York Mets in the wild-card round last weekend then won three straight games against a 111-win Dodgers team that had dominated them over the previous six months.
“It took a team effort to beat a really good team,” Padres third baseman Manny Machado said, “and we did that tonight.”
The Padres held a lead throughout Game 3, but they fell behind early in Game 4. When the seventh inning came around, they trailed 3-0 and were down to their final nine outs — while facing the grim prospect of returning to L.A. and facing the Dodgers’ ace, Julio Urias, in a winner-take-all Game 5.
Then the Padres staged their biggest rally of the year.
Jurickson Profar, Trent Grisham and Austin Nola — representing a bottom of the order that has come through all month — all reached to start the inning against the Dodgers’ bullpen. Ha-Seong Kim, the every-day shortstop in place of a suspended Fernando Tatis Jr., doubled down the left-field line, making it a one-run game. Juan Soto, the big midseason acquisition, lined a base hit to the right side to tie the score. And Jake Cronenworth, who has established himself as a cornerstone player, lined a two-out, two-run single up the middle against lefty reliever Alex Vesia, giving the Padres a two-run lead they would not relinquish.
The Padres, an 89-win team that entered this postseason as the No. 5 seed, became the fifth team to win multiple series in a single postseason against opponents that accumulated 10 or more wins than they did during the regular season. The Dodgers were especially dominant against them. L.A. won its last nine regular-season games against the Padres in 2021, and it then took 14 of 19 during the regular season in 2022, scoring more than twice as many runs in head-to-head matchups.
The Dodgers’ loss marked the first time a team lost a playoff series to a division opponent after not losing a series to that team during the regular season, according to research from the Elias Sports Bureau.
In addition, the Padres closed as a +190 underdog at Caesars Sportsbook to win the series, making this the second-biggest betting upset in a playoff series over the past 10 seasons. (The Washington Nationals were +195 to beat the Houston Astros in the 2019 World Series.)
“There’s a lot of good players over here,” Soto said. “I’m happy to be part of this, and I think we have everything we need to reach our goal.”
The Dodgers spent this entire season thinking the same. They set a franchise record in wins and notched a plus-334 run differential that was tied for the fourth largest in history, but they once again came up short. The Dodgers have won the NL West nine times in the past 10 years — the only year they didn’t win it saw them capture 106 wins and fall a game shy of a title — but have come away with only one World Series championship during that stretch, at the end of the pandemic-shortened 2020 season.
Dodgers manager Dave Roberts, a former Padres player and coach, called this latest defeat “crushing.”
“Each guy gave everything they had all year long and a tremendous season,” Roberts said. “The great thing about baseball is the unpredictability, and the tough thing about it is the same thing. Things could have gone either way today to impact the result of the game. It didn’t. We got beat in a series. Nothing I can say is going to make it feel any better. Obviously, we didn’t expect to be in this position.”
This series marked the second time in postseason history that a team eliminated another after winning 22 fewer games during the regular season, last done during the 1906 World Series.
The Padres held grand expectations entering the 2021 campaign but fell off in dramatic fashion down the stretch. The ensuing offseason brought a new manager in Bob Melvin, one of the most revered in the sport, and the thought that this franchise might finally take off.
The Padres navigated through most of the ensuing season as an enigma, often following dominant stretches with poor ones. Their hyper-aggressive general manager, A.J. Preller, traded for Soto and lights-out closer Hader before the trade deadline, but those moves were followed by the stunning revelation that Tatis, the face of their franchise, had tested positive for a performance-enhancing substance. The Padres persevered, doing just enough to secure a spot in Major League Baseball’s expanded postseason field. And when the playoffs began, they suddenly played their sharpest baseball of the season. Their fans naturally rallied behind them.
“The crowd was unbelievable,” said Joe Musgrove, the local product and lifelong Padres fan who pitched six innings of two-run ball in Game 4. “It was everything I could have imagined.”
The Hockey Hall of Fame is going to swing open its doors to some impressive former NHL stars in the next few years. Legends such as Zdeno Chara, Joe Thornton, Duncan Keith and Patrice Bergeron. Eventually Jaromir Jagr will be inducted. Probably in his 80s, when he’s done playing.
The Hall can welcome up to four men’s players in every annual class. Given how many current NHL players have a legitimate case for immortality, the selection committee will not suffer for a lack of choices.
Here is a tiered ranking of active NHL players based on their current Hall of Fame cases. We’ve picked the brain of Hockey Hall of Fame expert Paul Pidutti of Adjusted Hockey to help figure out the locks, the maybes, “the Hall of Very Good” and which young stars are on the path to greatness.
Let’s begin with the two players who have defined this century of hockey, and another player whose legend has grown to the point where he’s a sure-thing Hall of Famer.
“Honestly, when we lose, I don’t even get in the shower until early this morning. I’ll just be mad. I just brush my teeth. It’s like, I don’t deserve soap.” — Syracuse head coach Fran Brown
Here at Bottom 10 Headquarters, located behind the “sorry, not sorry” bouquet of water hemlocks sent to the Big 12 officiating office from Utah athletic director Mark Harlan, we know all too well the sting of losing football games. We see it every week in every game we watch.
Yeah, yeah, we know what you’re thinking. “Come on, dummy, someone loses every game that anyone watches.” That’s true. At least now it is. We are also old enough to remember when games ended in ties. That was way worse.
But here in the Bottom 10 Cinematic Universe, losses are worse because that’s all you experience. You’d think we’d get used to it, numb from the pain like when you keep accidentally biting that same spot on your tongue to the point that it just becomes sensory free. But instead, it’s like Bruce Banner explained about being the Hulk: “You see, I don’t get a suit of armor. I’m exposed. Like a nerve. It’s a nightmare.”
However, as we learned in “Age of Ultron,” even after one of his worst losses, Bruce Banner does take a shower. So, Coach Brown, take it from us, in a world where every team has a helluva lot more losses than Syracuse … dude, wash up. Seriously. We can smell you from here. And we’re in Kent, Ohio.
With apologies to Mr. Clean, former Miami (Ohio) quarterback Mike Bath, former Southern Illinois running back Wash Henry and Steve Harvey, here are the post-Week 11 Bottom 10 rankings.
The Golden(plated) Flashes are still America’s last winless FBS team, losing their 18th straight game when they were edged by Ohio 41-0. Now they travel to My Hammy of Ohio, where they are given a 2.8% chance to win by the ESPN Analytics Ouija board, er, I mean Matchup Predictor. But honestly, that game will only be the appetizer ahead of the, yes, Week 13 main course that is the Wagon Wheel showdown with Akronmonious. And by appetizer we mean way-past-the-expiration-date freezer-burned mini-pizza bagels.
The New Owls not only used their talons to snatch defeat from the jaws of victory at UTEP, losing in double overtime, they earned Bottom 10 Bonus Points for firing their head coach — and during their first year as an FBS team, no less. Though the AD issued a statement that Brian Bohannon had “stepped down,” Bohannon himself responded on social media: “Contrary to what’s been reported, I want to be clear that I did not step down.” But there is no confusion as to whether the Owls have stepped up or down in these rankings, where every move up is also a move down.
Brett Favre Funding U. lost to We Are Marshall 37-3, meaning all eight of their defeats this season have been by double digits. In related news, I also received double digit political texts on Election Day — and one of those was from Favre. No, for real. I wonder, did he cover the data charges himself or did he steal change from the donation jar at his grocery store checkout?
Sometimes in this life we are asked to do things that go against the fiber of our being. Like taking your daughter to the concert of an artist you’ve never heard of. Or me having to use Earth’s most annoying instrument, the leaf blower. This weekend this team of Minutemen will be asked to try to defeat Liberty.
5. The Sunshine State
The Coveted Fifth Spot has never been more crowded. The FBS, FCS and NFL teams of Florida posted a 1-11 record over the weekend, salvaged only by the Miami Dolphins’ win over the Los Angeles Rams on “Monday Night Football.” UC(not S)F, US(not C)F, FA(not I)U, Stetson, Florida A&M and Bethune-Cookman all lost, led in misery by the Wildcats’ five-overtime loss to Southern. The Flori-duh Gate Doors celebrated the announced retaining of coach Billy Napier by losing to Texas in a squeaker 49-17. And My Hammy of Florida finally spotted an opponent a lead too large for a Cam Ward comeback and took its first loss of the season, falling to unranked Georgia Tech. If only someone else in the state could relate to that …
The Semi-No’s are continuing to work around the Coveted Fifth Spot by earning their Bottom 10 keep the old-fashioned way, not only losing to semi/sorta/kinda ACC member Notre Dame by a scant 52-3, but also earning a pile of their own Bottom 10 Bonus Points not by firing head coach Mike Norvell, but because Norvell fired both his offensive and defensive coordinators and a wide receivers coach. In related news, over the weekend a friend of mine steered his bass boat into a giant pile of sharp rocks and reacted by throwing his shirt and hat overboard.
It was three weekends ago that the Buttermakers lost to then-second-ranked Oregon 35-0. On Saturday, they lost to then-second-ranked Ohio State 45-0. Now they play sixth-ranked Penn State, and in two weeks end their season playing currently eighth-ranked Indiana. We have to assume that a team of professors from Purdue’s legendary mechanical engineering department is studying this experience as a way to assess the stress put on a school bus that is attempting to drive over a lava field covered in landmines.
The Minors have a weekend off to continue their post-Kennesaw victory party. And what’s the best way to snap yourself out of a two-week hangover? Hair of the dog? A cold bucket of water over the head? How about the hair of a coontick hound and a bucket of water from the river during a Week 13 trip to Neyland Stadium to play Tennessee?
Whatever is left of UTEP after Knoxville will then play whatever is left of the Other Aggies after their Week 12 trip to face the OG Aggies of Texas A&M. If there’s any justice in this world, then the loser and/or winner of that Aggie Bowl would go on to play …
The Other Other Aggies lost to the one-loss team the nation forgot about, Warshington State. But if you consider the week before that, we find a Bottom 10 conundrum. Utah State beat WhyOMGing? but the week before that lost to Whew Mexico by five points. Meanwhile, Wyoming, who lost to Utah State two weeks ago, spent last weekend beating New Mexico by five points. Perhaps we will be given some clarity when Wyoming ends the year at Washington State. Or perhaps we will have already given up. As so many here in the Bottom 10 seem to do.
Waiting list: Miss Sus Hippie State, Georgia State Not Southern, FA(not I)U, Akronmonious, Meh-dle Tennessee, WhyOMGing?, Temple of Doom, Living on Tulsa Time, You A Bee?, Standfird, people who put all those election signs up but now won’t take them down.
NEW YORK — An arbitrator upheld five-year suspensions of the chief executives of Bad Bunny’s sports representation firm for making improper inducements to players and cut the ban of the company’s only certified baseball agent to three years.
Ruth M. Moscovitch issued the ruling Oct. 30 in a case involving Noah Assad, Jonathan Miranda and William Arroyo of Rimas Sports. The ruling become public Tuesday when the Major League Baseball Players Association filed a petition to confirm the 80-page decision in New York Supreme Court in Manhattan.
The union issued a notice of discipline on April 10 revoking Arroyo’s agent certification and denying certification to Assad and Miranda, citing a $200,000 interest-free loan and a $19,500 gift. It barred them from reapplying for five years and prohibited certified agents from associating with any of the three of their affiliated companies. Assad, Miranda and Arroyo then appealed the decision, and Moscovitch was jointly appointed as the arbitrator on June 17.
Moscovitch said the union presented unchallenged evidence of “use of non-certified personnel to talk with and recruit players; use of uncertified staff to negotiate terms of players’ employment; giving things of value – concert tickets, gifts, money – to non-client players; providing loans, money, or other things of value to non-clients as inducements; providing or facilitating loans without seeking prior approval or reporting the loans.”
“I find MLBPA has met its burden to prove the alleged violations of regulations with substantial evidence on the record as a whole,” she wrote. “There can be no doubt that these are serious violations, both in the number of violations and the range of misconduct. As MLBPA executive director Anthony Clark testified, he has never seen so many violations of so many different regulations over a significant period of time.”
María de Lourdes Martínez, a spokeswoman for Rimas Sports, said she was checking to see whether the company had any comment on the decision. Arroyo did not immediately respond to a text message seeking comment.
Moscovitch held four in-person hearings from Sept. 30 to Oct. 7 and three on video from Oct. 10-16.
“While these kinds of gifts are standard in the entertainment business, under the MLBPA regulations, agents and agencies simply are not permitted to give them to non-clients,” she said.
“While it is true, as MLBPA alleges, that Mr. Arroyo violated the rules by not supervising uncertified personnel as they recruited players, he was put in that position by his employers,” Moscovitch wrote. “The regulations hold him vicariously liable for the actions of uncertified personnel at the agency. The reality is that he was put in an impossible position: the regulations impose on him supervisory authority over all of the uncertified operatives at Rimas, but in reality, he was their underling, with no authority over anyone.”