The vengeful Dodgers pull off an exciting NLDS-opening win over the Padres

For the first act, it was deafening madness.

For the first step, it was a dizzying leap.

For a Game 1, it was a Game 7, fought over nine innings and cheered by more than 53,000 bouncing fans as if it were the last piece of baseball on earth.

Wait, the Dodgers are going to play more of this?

Yes, absolutely, at least 10 more, even 18 more, and on and on, more, more, the senses can’t get enough of what the Dodgers brought to the San Diego Padres on Saturday night with a 7-5 victory in Game 1 of the National League Division Series at Dodger Stadium.

It began with blue flags flying from the dugouts and blue rags being hoisted and waved throughout the boisterous full house.

It ended with Blake Treinen striking out Donovan Solano with the bases loaded in the eighth and then striking out Manny Machado with the tying runs on the bases to end the ninth.

Pure madness from start to finish, in the midst of a mob that never calmed down, never calmed down, never stopped.

“I don’t think there’s any comparison to what happened here at Dodger Stadium,” Teoscar Hernández said in an interview with Fox afterward.

The Padres quickly led by three. Boom! Shohei Ohtani caught her in one fell swoop.

The Padres quickly led again by two. Bang! The Dodgers got past them with a wild pitch and a Hernández rocket.

The Padres faltered. The Dodgers were relentless, continuing to charge after a Manny Machado collapse and finishing with a blazing bullpen that threw six shutout innings.

More, yes, more, the Dodgers need more of that kind of fire if they want to exorcise their first-round demons in October and finish off the Padres in a best-of-five rematch from two seasons ago.

“I could really feel the intensity of the stadium before the game started and I really enjoyed it,” Ohtani said through interpreter Will Ireton.

He wasn’t the only one having fun. Based on history, this was arguably the Dodgers’ biggest postseason Game 1 win since Kirk Gibson went deep against the Oakland A’s in 1988.

The Dodgers desperately needed this kind of night to avoid the feeling of familiar dread that would have descended on the clubhouse if they lost. They absolutely had to prove that they wouldn’t be embarrassed in the postseason.

In more than three hours that felt like three minutes on Saturday, they proved all that and more, more, more.

“We’re going to fight, every throw, every shot,” Hernández said.

In 2022, the Padres won that series in four games against a cocky Dodger team that lacked intensity. That’s clearly not happening this time, look at a play that resulted in zero runs but meant everything.

In the third inning, Freddie Freeman stole second base while suffering a severe ankle sprain that nearly kept him out of the lineup.

Seriously, he stole second on one leg.

Dodgers baserunner Freddie Freeman hits San Diego second baseman Jake Cronenworth and steals second base in the third inning Saturday.

(Gina Ferazzi / Los Angeles Times)

Last season in the same series, the Arizona Diamondbacks defeated a Dodgers team that lacked any offensive aggressiveness. That’s not happening this time, watch the Dodgers’ opening rally in the fourth inning.

It started with Tommy Edman putting a perfect ball to the uncovered left side of the infield.

Believe it, someone in modern baseball has actually bullied their way to the base.

More fire, more fight and of course the Dodgers added a weapon they’ve been missing the last two years, arguably the greatest weapon in baseball history.

More, more, more Ohtani! He’s officially unreal, he’s undeniably otherworldly, and he proved it twice again in three game-changing innings.

With two outs and two runners on base in the second inning and trailing 3-0, Ohtani fouled a ball off his knee, grabbed the knee and winced in pain. But remember, this is Superman. He launched the ensuing four-seam fastball at 111 mph into the right-field pavilion, accompanied by a roar that literally rocked the press box. And forget all his usual outward politeness. His reaction to this last bit of ferocity was nothing short of violent, a furiously thrown club and an extended howl.

After the Padres recovered and scored a few more runs against terrible starter Yoshinobu Yamamoto – more on that later – Ohtani came on again.

In the fourth, Superman again had two runners on base thanks to Edman’s surprise bunt and a Miguel Rojas single. This time, Ohtani broke his bat but swung it so hard that the ball still floated into center field for a bases-loading single. After a run scored on Adrian Morejon’s wild pitch, Hernandez added an RBI single to center that scored two runs when rookie Jackson Merrill misplayed the short hop.

Shohei Ohtani celebrates after hitting a three-run home run in the second inning against the Padres in Game 1 of the NLDS on Saturday night.

(Robert Gauthier/Los Angeles Times)

That inning gave the Dodgers a one-run lead, which expanded an inning later after Machado lazily uncorked a wild pitch to first that led to another Dodgers run.

In fact, the constantly booed Machado managed to hit a home run in the first inning, but ended up getting loose. The entire Padres team seemed unsettled by the noise of the Dodger fans and the attack of the Dodger lineup.

“I’m just excited to throw the first strike,” Dodgers manager Dave Roberts said before the game. “I expect us to be ready to fight.”

That’s what they did, and that’s what they did.

Roberts added that he has been feeling a revenge mood over the last week.

“I think there’s a certain intensity,” he said. “Some people want to get back at some people and show how good we are. And I like that. I like that feeling that exists in our clubhouse.”

On Saturday night, that feeling echoed on the field, with one exception.

This is still a team with starting pitching issues.

The game began with a rotation controversy when the Dodgers switched gears late in the week and started Yamamoto, the fragile $325 million offseason investment who had officiated all four games since June.

It was a terrible idea. Many, including here, initially thought it was a terrible idea. It was a classic case of the renowned Dodgers outsmarting themselves.

Yamamoto was reportedly recovering from a shoulder injury that cost him nearly three months this summer, but he had thrown more than four innings just once in four starts in his comeback.

Their original Game 1 pick, Jack Flaherty, was moved to Game 2 with the thought that that way both Flaherty and the fragile Yamamoto could be available for Game 5.

But who plans Game 5 when the series hasn’t even started yet? Why would you want to hold back your best available starter to put Game 1 in the hands of a soft-shouldered pitcher who has never experienced a big league October?

Yamamoto was terrible in almost every one of his 60 pitches, allowing five runs on five hits, two walks and a strikeout, and no one was fooled.

He and the Dodgers were lucky that their offense is so strong. They might not be so lucky next time.

A great start… and yet a big hurdle between this and the obligatory repeated encores.