A crucial Padres-Dodgers series goes down this weekend. Here's how to tune in

New York Times

21 hours ago

These teams do not like each other. Not at all. They never have. Fortunately, they also play each other a lot, and lately, they've been good at the same time. This weekend offers a loaded three-game series between the San Diego Padres and the Los Angeles Dodgers. Heat is rising in Southern California, and room is narrowing in the NL West.
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Both teams have indeed stayed competitive in recent years, and they've tangled up for three different playoff series since 2020. But it's really just been the Dodgers atop the division, with 11 NL West titles across the last dozen seasons. The Padres haven't had sole possession of first place this late in the calendar since 2010.
Unusual circumstances, but that's just how things are shaking out this summer. Los Angeles went 10-14 in July, putting up a minus-23 run differential. It just got swept in this week's Freeway Series, with the Tuesday and Wednesday Ls to the Angels coming by a combined two runs. Shohei Ohtani slugged two more homers in Anaheim, and he threw against his original MLB team for the first time (4.1 innings, four earned runs, both season highs). The Dodgers now arrive on the other side of I-5 with a pitching problem. They've allowed five or more runs in six of their last eight games.
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San Diego flipped the energies with a 15-10 record in July (plus-19 run differential). It begins this series at 9-3 for the month, off a dominant plus-20 differential and a mere five runs allowed in its last four games. Deadline acquisitions Ramón Laureano and Freddy Fermín are delivering instant returns, while the grooving bullpen holds the league lead in relief ERA.
Manny Machado is currently second in the National League in hits (138). Will Smith leads the NL in batting average and OBP, and Ohtani is the league's presumed favorite for MVP. There's much to appreciate about this weekend's matchup, and much still to settle as the season rounds into its final quarter.
'Six weeks ago, after returning home from a frustrating road trip, the Padres awoke on the fringes of wild-card contention. They were 46-40. Their odds of making the postseason, according to FanGraphs, were at a little more than 40 percent. The site's projections gave them less than a 1 percent shot of winning the National League West.
That owed to the continued dominance of their chief rivals.
That night, the Los Angeles Dodgers finished off a seventh consecutive winning series and moved to a season-high 24 games above .500. They appeared to be cruising toward a 12th division crown in 13 years. Despite a slew of injuries, their World Series title defense was more or less going according to plan.
The Padres have since won 23 of 35 games. The Dodgers have lost 21 of 33 — and now trail San Diego by a full game. Friday at Dodger Stadium, the two teams will meet in the first of consecutive weekend series against each other. It's still August, but the stakes should impart the feel of October.' — Dennis Lin
Machado starts this series at an even 200 (187 homers and counting for the Padres, 13 for the Dodgers in half of 2018).
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(Photo by Ronald Martinez / Getty Images)
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