The Los Angeles Dodgers welcomed the San Diego Padres to town and then convincingly defeated their hated rival in all three games over the weekend. Normally that would be referred to as a “Sweep”, but considering what was at stake, it’s safe to assume the Dodgers sucked all the air out of the Padres and their fans, hence the vacuum reference.

Having just taken sole possession of first place in the NL West, the Padres were riding on the high of a five game winning streak. Meanwhile, the Dodgers just fell out of first place and were trying to shake off a humiliating three game losing streak to the Angels. Going into Friday nights game San Diego had a one game lead over Los Angeles. Let’s quickly recap the weekend series:

Friday Night: The Kershaw Game
Going into the opening game of the series, Dodger manager Dave Roberts knew that Clayton Kershaw was exactly the guy he needed on the mound to set the tone for his ball club. Roberts could not have made a better choice. His fastball rarely touches 90mph these days, but what Clayton lacks in mph, he more than makes up with the savvy and tenacity of a future Hall of Famer. Kershaw would give up a second inning solo homer to Ramon Laureano, but after that Clayton buckled down and did not allow another run to cross the plate over his six full innings pitched. In fact, he only let one other Padre get a hit on him. It was a masterful performance.

Meanwhile, Padre pitcher Randy Vasquez gave up two runs in the bottom of the third. Michael Conforto and Alex Freeland opened the inning with hits and later scored off RBI at bats from Shohei Ohtani and Mookie Betts.

Teoscar Hernandez would hit a solo homer to centerfield in the sixth inning, putting the Dodgers out front 3-1. That insurance run was huge. The Padres would scratch one more run in the eighth inning but that was all the Dodger bullpen would allow.

Los Angeles took game one by a score of 3-2. The Dodgers and Padres were now deadlocked atop the NL West.

Saturday Night: Gunslinger Will Smith

Dodger pitcher Blake Snell had a pretty rocky start in game 2 of the series. When leadoff batter Fernando Tatis singled to open up the game it looked like maybe the Padres were going to open things up. That was up until Tatis made a break for second base and was gunned down by Dodger catcher Will Smith. Luis Arreaz hit a double and that was followed by a dribbler single by Manny Machado. Again, it looked like the Padres were going to do some damage. That was until Machado decided it was his turn to steal second, only to meet the same fate as Tatis, as he too was thrown out by Smith to end the inning.

Say what you will about Padre pitcher Dylan Cease, he is either really good or really bad. Saturday night he was the latter. Before the Padres knew what hit them Cease walked the first three batters and loaded the bases with no outs. Teoscar Hernandez and Michael Conforto would supply the RBI bats, and just like that, Los Angeles jumped out to a 2-0 lead.

The second inning began much as the first inning for the Padres. Snell gave up a leadoff hit to Xander Bogaerts putting the Padres back in business. Without any regard for what happened in the previous inning, Bogaerts attempted to steal second and, you guessed it, he was thrown out by Smith. That’s three runners gunned down in less than two innings. Not the brightest coaching decision, to say the least.

After that, Snell found his groove and began to pitch a pretty good game.

In the bottom half of the second Cease walked Ohtani and Smith. That is when Freddie Freeman came to the plate and hit a pretty routine fly ball to center field. But Jackson Merrill went all “Aaron  Judge” and dropped the ball allowing both Shohei and Will to score. After two innings, the Dodgers had a 5-0 lead and the Padres were trying to figure out what the heck just happened.

Teoscar would homer for the second night in a row jumping Los Angeles out to a 6-0 lead. That would be the final score. The Padres dropped another game and were now back in the number two hole. The Dodgers were once again standing alone at the top with a one game lead over San Diego.

Sunday Game: Mookie To The Rescue

In what was the most exciting of the three games, the Los Angeles Dodgers jumped out to a big early lead but then had to fight off a tough San Diego Padre squad who kept chipping away, trying to salvage one game over the weekend.

The Dodgers were all over Yu Darvish in the first inning. Ohtani opened up with a single and then Darvish walked Betts. With one out Freeman came up to the plate and took an 0-2 fastball over the center field fence.

Two batters later Andy Pages would clear the left field wall and the Dodgers jumped out to a 4-0 lead.

Dodger pitcher Tyler Glasnow had a good day, but a walk and a double by Tatis would get the Padres on the scoreboard in the third inning. Glasnow would give up a homer to Laureano in the top of the fifth that cut the score to 4-2.

The Padres would peck away and in the top of the eighth inning a fielders choice grounder by Iglesias drove in a run and evened the score 4-4.

Batting in the bottom of the eighth, Mookie Betts, who has struggled throughout the year, got the count to 2-0 before he took a 96mph heater from Robert Suarez over the left centerfield wall to put the Dodgers back in the lead, 5-4. Juarez would retire the next three batters but he gave up the lead and the Padres had just three outs left to try to get back into the game.

Having closed out the top of the eighth, Alex Vesia came in to get the win and the sweep for the Dodgers. Facing the top of the Padre line-up, Vesia got both Tatis and Arreaz to pop out to first base for the first two outs. In a fitting ending, Vesia battled the much maligned Manny Machado for the final at bat of the day. Machado worked the count to 3-2 but was unable to catch up to a Vesia 93mph Four-Seamer and struck out swinging. The roar of the crowd was deafening, and rightly so. The Dodgers won all three games at home and are back on top of the NL West by a full 2 games.

After the game Dodger manager Dave Roberts summed things up best by saying, “It was just good to play a really good series start to finish.”

By William Trillo