Dodgers keep rolling, one day at a time

I did not make the trip to San Diego to see this Dodgers-Padres series in person, but the excitement from Petco Park has practically jumped out of my television screen in the first two games. These are two excellent teams playing exciting, close games, with many phenomenal plays and moments mixed in.

The Dodgers, almost to a man, have tried to downplay the importance of this series against their divisional rivals, especially with 17 more matchups left, and 147 more games left on the regular season schedule.

“Obviously the crowd is into it and there’s a lot of energy, but I think we’re going about it the way that we always do,” said Justin Turner who homered in the ninth inning on Saturday. “Trying to figure out how to win one game today, then we’ll worry about tomorrow, tomorrow.”

Whatever the Dodgers are doing, it’s working, and has been for a while. They only lost one regular season series last year, then won all four postseason series en route to a championship. So far this year, they have won all five series, and have won their last eight games.

The one-day-at-a-time mentality has the Dodgers 69-24 (.742) since the start of 2020, counting the postseason.

“You play six months, there’s going to be tough times and you gotta grind. But just to kind of shorten the mentality, it allows you to perform better,” manager Dave Roberts said. “For us to come back after last night, and come with the intensity. Yu Darvish was really good tonight, but the focus, the compete was still there. And I expect the same thing from our guys tomorrow.”

Links

• Walker Buehler has been effective in his first three starts without his usual strikeouts, writes Bill Plunkett at the Orange County Register.
• Saturday’s game was decided by a centimeter, says Alden Gonzalez at ESPN.
• Juan Toribio at MLB.com wrote about the latest Dodgers-Padres tiff.
• The Padres’ close losses to the Dodgers only make them sting more for San Diego, writes AJ Cassavell at MLB.com.
• Helene Elliott at the Los Angeles Times wrote about how Friday’s opener to Dodgers-Padres had everyone wanting more.