For so much of this year, the Dodgers have been picking Mookie Betts up amid a career-worst season at the plate.
On Sunday afternoon, with a rivalry game and division lead hanging in the balance, he returned the favor with his biggest swing in ages.
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After once leading by four, then watching the Padres claw all the way back to tie the score, the Dodgers completed a weekend series sweep on Betts’ go-ahead home run in the bottom of the eighth — his no-doubt, 394-foot, stadium-shaking blast sending the Dodgers to a 5-4 win and two-game lead in the National League West.
As Betts came to the plate in the eighth inning, Dodger Stadium was silent and tense.
In the first inning, the team had ambushed Padres starter Yu Darvish for four runs on long balls from Freddie Freeman and Andy Pages.
From there, a crowd of 49,189 watched the Padres slowly storm back.
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Tyler Glasnow fizzled after two electric opening innings, leaving the game at the end of the fifth after giving up two runs.
A patchwork Dodgers bullpen couldn’t hold the Padres off, giving up runs in the top of the sixth and eighth that transformed the score into a 4-4 tie.
At that point, San Diego had the advantage. Their league-leading bullpen was fresh. Their closer, Robert Suarez, was on the mound. And the Dodgers were almost completely out of pitching options, having burned five relievers to get the previous nine outs.
But then, Betts delivered. In a 2-and-0 count against Suarez, he launched a center-cut fastball deep into the left-field stands.
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It was the kind of moment that has eluded the former MVP so often this year. The kind of heroic act the Dodgers (71-53) had been waiting for despite his career-worst .241 batting average.
Just like that, the Dodgers completed their sweep against the Padres (69-55). They went from second place at the start of Friday to all alone back in first three days later.
Dodgers reliever Alex Vesia, right, celebrates with catcher Will Smith after the Dodgers’ 5-4 win over the Padres at Dodger Stadium on Sunday. (Carlin Stiehl / Los Angeles Times)
Long before the dramatic ending, Sunday had started like the previous two nights. The Dodgers were getting good pitching, with Glasnow striking out four of his first five batters while pumping increased fastball velocity and generating foolish swings with his slider. The Padres were making mistakes; most notably, Freddy Fermín getting gunned down by Pages from center while trying to leg out a double in the top of the third, turning what could have been a crooked-number inning into only a one-run rally.
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Darvish, meanwhile, made a pair of two-strike mistakes, leaving a fastball up to Freeman for a three-run homer before failing to bury a splitter to Pages for a solo shot.
Things began to shift, however, in the fifth. Ramón Laureano lifted a solo drive just over the wall in right. And though Glasnow got out of a jam later in the inning, his fading command and rising pitch count forced him from the game after 91 throws.
That meant, with the Padres turning to their shutdown (and, after two defeats to start the series, well-rested) bullpen, the Dodgers’ shaky relief corps was asked to protect a narrow lead.
Once again, they couldn’t.
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In the sixth, Anthony Banda gave up one run on a pair of doubles (the second one, a floating fly ball into the right field corner from Ryan O’Hearn that slow-footed Teoscar Hernández couldn’t track down).
Read more: Dodgers capitalize on Padres’ sloppiness to retake sole possession of first place
And though Blake Treinen stranded a runner at third in the seventh — thanks in no small part to a generous strike call against Manny Machado that negated a walk — more trouble arose in the eighth.
Alexis Díaz started the inning by hitting a batter, then gave up a double to Laureano on a line drive to center. Alex Vesia took over from there and retired both batters he faced. But the first one was a ground ball from Jose Iglesias, just enough to get a runner home from third for the tying run.
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For a fleeting moment, all the momentum the Dodgers had built this past week seemed to be fading.
Instead of retaking control of the division lead, they risked finishing this weekend tied atop the standings.
With one swing, Betts changed all that.
In a year of so much frustration, his moment of salvation finally arrived.
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This story originally appeared in Los Angeles Times.
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