Back in my day, the only Dodgers rival was to the north. San Francisco (beautiful city that it is) was distinctly enemy territory. I still get a little twitchy when I see black and orange together.

So, I begrudgingly admit that the tides have turned southward. When the Padres-Dodgers rivalry really started heating up, I was still in denial—San Diego who? But it feels like the Padres wanted a rivalry, so a rivalry they got.

How did it all happen so fast? Jack Harris at the Los Angeles Times points to the very contrasting styles of each team. The Padres are the underdogs in a smaller market, but pack a punch when it comes to big names and big emotions. Signing Manny Machado in 2019 probably helped spark that.

“A lot of people over the last few years have been very patient as we’ve tried to build something that’s going to stand up long term,” said Padres general manager AJ Preller when Machado was introduced. “Obviously, it’s an exclamation point here today with the signing of Manny.”

The Dodgers, meanwhile, are far from small in any capacity and comfortable in the spotlight they’ve held for so long. The Padres come off as scrappy and energetic, while the Dodgers seem to be a bit more measured—and none of those descriptors are meant to be a dig at either team. They’re just different.

“When you look at what the Padres have become, it’s a team that plays with very high energy, very high emotion. And they’ve created an atmosphere down there that drives off that,” Max Muncy said. “We are almost the opposite. We play on very little emotion. And I just think those two styles contrast very differently. You started seeing that in the games.”

Maybe that’s why this one feels different. The Giants rivalry was a holdover from the New York era, and though it stuck as the team moved west, I think we’ve mostly forgotten why the Giants were a problem in the first place. The Padres-Dodgers rivalry, though, is modern. It’s a product of Southern California, with all of the energy that comes with that.

“I just felt last year, where they were going, how they were kind of feeling, and our mindset and psyche, we needed to kind of match their intensity,” said Dodgers manager Dave Roberts.

Here’s hoping: The two remaining series against San Diego will be the biggest series of the Dodgers’ season thanks to the current NL West standings. It’ll be important for L.A. to bring some heat of its own.