Emotions ran high both on the field and in the stands at Dodger Stadium when rowdy fans threw baseballs, seemingly at San Diego left fielder Jurickson Profar, causing a 12-minute delay between pitches during the seventh inning of the Padres’ 10-2 victory in NL Division Series Game 2 on Sunday night.
“That’s just not acceptable,” Padres manager Mike Shildt said.
There was a confrontation between Dodgers pitcher Jack Flaherty and Padres star Manny Machado, who was upset after Flaherty hit Fernando Tatis Jr.
“Well, shoot, I’ve seen over a thousand games here, well over a thousand games in this ballpark, and I’ve never seen anything like that,” Dodgers manager Dave Roberts said. “It was ugly.”
Profar made a great catch, robbing Mookie Betts of a home run in the first inning by reaching into the stands behind the low left-field wall. Left field umpire Adrian Johnson signaled a home run with his arm.
However, Profar fought against the outstretched arms of fans, managing to catch the ball in the webbing of his glove, which helped boost the Padres to tie the best-of-five series at one game each.
“He tried,” Profar said about a fan who tried to grab the ball. “I dunked on him.” Profar jumped back while looking at the surprised fans and then threw the ball to the infield. Later, there were more verbal exchanges between fans and Profar.
“He said the fans out there were trying to get it out of his glove,” Padres player Manny Machado said. “What a hell of a catch to start off the game.”
With San Diego ahead 4-1 and Yu Darvish warming up for the bottom of the seventh, fans seemed to be yelling at Profar, who gestured back to them with his right arm.
A few balls were thrown, and Johnson approached him, soon joined by Shildt, other San Diego players, and additional umpires. Profar yelled and pointed, while teammate Xander Bogaerts put an arm around him, and Padres players, including Darvish, formed a huddle.
“Yes, I was upset. You can hurt somebody,” Profar said. “I hope our people in San Diego don’t do that.” Profar mentioned that Dodgers fans “wanted to start throwing stuff on the field yesterday.”
Roberts said, “Obviously there’s a lot of emotions and things like that. But that’s something that should never happen.”
The Dodgers’ security team worked to identify the fans who caused the problems.
“We were looking for a higher security presence out in the left-field corner to ensure that that behavior didn’t continue and to make sure that if anybody did throw anything out on the field they would be identified immediately and removed from the stadium,” umpire crew chief Dan Bellino said.
Public address announcer Todd Leitz told the crowd: “We ask that you do not throw objects onto the field.”
“You’re in a tough environment,” Machado said. “You’re going to get some things said to you but once you start throwing things onto the field that’s just uncalled for.” There was trash on the warning track in right field near the Padres bullpen.
“Now we had a second instance that was happening at a different part of the stadium, so we just had to reiterate with security that we needed enhanced security out in right field as well,” Bellino said.
After the seventh inning, Machado gathered his teammates for a brief meeting in their dugout. Machado said his message was “just stay focused.”
Flaherty hit Tatis with a pitch in the sixth inning, and Profar exchanged words with Dodgers catcher Will Smith.
“You can’t get him out, don’t hit him,” Machado said. “They got the best player in the game, (Shohei) Ohtani. We don’t go out there and try to hit Ohtani. We try to get him out.”
Flaherty struck Machado out swinging with Tatis and another runner on base in the sixth inning. “He did some s—- in between innings. He threw a ball at our dugout,” Flaherty said. “There was no reason for that.”
When asked about Flaherty’s claim, Machado responded, “I throw balls all the time into dugouts. Both dugouts. They have bad balls, you throw the ball back in there.”
Bellino mentioned that the situation never got to a point where umpires thought about sending players off the field.
“We would not hesitate to do that if we thought that their safety was in jeopardy,” he said. “And if that was to proceed, then obviously it would be referred to the commissioner’s office to see if a potential forfeit would be called for.”
The best-of-five series now moves to Petco Park for Game 3 on Tuesday.
“We’re about to go back to San Diego with a very, very loud, raucous, aggressive, hungry crowd that’s going to be super-excited and going to be getting after it,” Shildt said, before quoting a line from the Will Ferrell comedy “Anchorman.”
“But I know also that we’ll stay classy, San Diego.”
