. He, speaking to Dodgers Nation, took this series as an opportunity, not a threat.<\/a> \u201cIt should be a fun, fun three-game series\u2026 these are three big ones. We want to sweep here.\u201d LA wants to take the Padres\u2019 best shot, it seems. Now, of course, the battle was always supposed to be intense. It was guaranteed, given the heated time back in July when Fernando Tatis Jr. and Ohtani both got plunked. Plus, when the bench-clearing incident happened, the tension seemed to be everywhere. From the pitch to the fastball and every at-bat, even fans felt the rage.<\/p>\nPadres fans warned the Dodgers that if anything happened, then even they have pitchers who throw three-digit fastballs! Phew. For now, San Diego seems to have heard the message the Los Angeles Dodgers want to give \u2014 only they get to be on top! And amidst all this chaos, a certain Padres player is going gaga over a Dodger arm.<\/p>\n
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Los Angeles Dodgers\u2019 Will Smith\u2019s arm steals the show!<\/p>\n
Saturday night at Los Angeles Dodger Stadium was a lot about Will Smith\u2019s arm. Not only are his words prophetic, but it seems like he even does what he says. He became a one-man highlight reel behind the plate. He gunned down three Padres baserunners in the first two innings alone. The Padres had seemingly come in with a plan to put the pressure on the bases, but Smith was not having it.<\/p>\n
Three of his first four outs came via his throws. Even Xander Bogaerts fell victim to Smith, and he couldn\u2019t help but give him his flowers later.\u201cLooking back, maybe we shouldn\u2019t have gone,\u201d Bogaerts admitted. \u201cI got my jump. I thought I was safe by a mile. But Smith has a good arm, man.\u201d That momentum shift is what LA needed, and sure, Smith may have gone 0-for-2 at the plate, but his two walks and two runs scored ensured that the game had his name all over it.<\/p>\n
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LA walked away with a 6-0 win and got on top of the NL West. Even the Padres starter Dylan Cease didn\u2019t help and walked six batters in just 3.1 innings; he surrendered five of the Dodgers\u2019 six runs. On the flip side, the Los Angeles Dodgers<\/a> relied on Smith\u2019s defense, an area he doesn\u2019t always shine, but his throwing arm is among the best in the game. Now, after a rough stretch after being rattled by the Angels, even LA looks back on track and pace. The series finale is left, and the Dodgers have the chance to end it with a sweep.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"A little tug of war with words is always fun before a rivalry matchup, right? But this time,…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":231264,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[2407],"tags":[5,4,3324,43,137,18,4339,4338,3325],"class_list":{"0":"post-255230","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-san-diego-padres","8":"tag-baseball","9":"tag-mlb","10":"tag-npstrans","11":"tag-padres","12":"tag-san-diego","13":"tag-san-diego-padres","14":"tag-sandiego","15":"tag-sandiegopadres","16":"tag-toppic"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/channels.im\/@mlb\/115047212442577602","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/255230","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=255230"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/255230\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/231264"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=255230"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=255230"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=255230"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}
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