LOS ANGELES — It wasn’t because they celebrated.
There were, in reality, no visible signs the Padres had cut a rug and soaked it after clinching a playoff berth here Tuesday.
The nightclub was back to being just a workplace.
A cleaning crew arrived inside the visitors clubhouse at Dodger Stadium almost as soon as the Padres departed and was finished around 2 a.m. By the time the Padres arrived on Wednesday, there were virtually no remnants of the partying that created a small lake of champagne and beer in the center of the room.
“We enjoyed it,” manager Mike Shildt said Wednesday afternoon. “Most of the celebratory beverages were on the floor or on people’s clothes or in their eyes. … We acknowledged the accomplishment, and now we’re ready to get back after it.”
The Padres were evidently no worse for having taken a couple hours to celebrate what months of hard work had wrought. Not only did the environment look as if nothing had ever happened, Padres players and coaches bustled about as if it was any other Wednesday.
“It’s a new day,” Jake Cronenworth. “Gotta find a way to win.”
They gave it a run, coming back from two deficits.
But they were facing a Dodgers team that, while it might be trendy (and accurate) to point out their myriad shortcomings, entered Wednesday with the major leagues’ best winning percentage and has Shohei Ohtani.
The presumptive National League MVP’s single off Adrián Morejón in the sixth inning broke a tie and was the third run in which he had a hand Wednesday, and the Dodgers held on for a 4-3 victory.
With that, the Padres’ chances of winning the National League West all but evaporated.
To win the division, the Padres now most likely have to win all four of their remaining games and have the Dodgers lose three of their remaining four games. The only other scenario by which the Padres could also take the division is by winning three games, as long as one of them is Thursday’s series finale against the Dodgers, and having the Dodgers get swept in Colorado this weekend.
“It’s a little bit out of our hands as far as the destiny goes,” Shildt said afterward. “We still have a shot at it.”
What the Padres were always more likely to do is win the NL’s top wild-card spot, and they remain 3½ games ahead of the Diamondbacks and Mets in that pursuit.
Ohtani began his night of havoc with a walk to lead off the bottom of the first, went to second on a Dylan Cease slider that bounced in front of the plate and then off catcher Elías Díaz’s glove and scored when Teoscar Hernández lined a single the other way to right-center field with two outs.
Dodgers starter Jack Flaherty walked Manny Machado to start the second inning, and Jackson Merrill followed with a double that hopped the short wall in the right-field corner. Machado scored on Xander Bogaerts’ single and Merrill scored on a groundout to the right side by Cronenworth.
Unlike Tuesday, though, the Dodgers came back.
After Cease retired nine of 10 batters to get two outs into the fourth inning, a double by Tommy Edman, single by Gavin Lux, walk by Miguel Rojas and double by Ohtani made it 3-2.
With two outs in the top of the fifth, Fernando Tatis Jr. sent a fastball from Flaherty a projected 448 feet to the top of the left field bleachers to tie the game.
Both starting pitchers were done after five innings. Flaherty had thrown 100 pitches and Cease 97.
Jeremiah Estrada began the bottom of the sixth by walking Will Smith and Tommy Edman before striking out Lux and benefiting from Merrill making a diving catch of a line drive by Andy Pages.
Morejón came in to face Ohtani and surrendered the go-ahead single.
The Padres walked once in three of the final four innings but did not get a hit after Tatis’ homer.
They conclude the series here Thursday before finishing the regular season with a three-game set in Phoenix against the Diamondbacks.
“We’re just going to keep coming,” Tatis said. “We still have a shot. We’ll just take what we have left. We’re definitely going to bring the same energy tomorrow and keep going like that.”
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