Dodgers, Padres benches clear in series finale, both managers ejected

LOS ANGELES — Amid baseball’s most heated rivalry, the benches cleared Thursday at Dodger Stadium after San Diego Padres outfielder Fernando Tatis Jr. was plunked, and Padres manager Mike Shildt and Dodgers counterpart Dave Roberts confronted each other in the immediate aftermath.

Shildt appeared to glare directly at Roberts as he went to tend to Tatis, then continued toward the Dodgers dugout until he was met on the field by a similarly incensed Roberts. The two benches and dugouts cleared as the two men made momentary physical contact, creating a brown and blue mosh pit of sorts behind home plate to cap a series that left both sides more black and blue and chapped than anything else.

Both managers were subsequently ejected, and warnings were issued in the final inning of a four-game set that included seven combined hit batters between the two sides. Tatis, who walked off the field under his own power, was replaced by a pinch runner.

Roberts had lifted stars Mookie Betts, Freddie Freeman and Will Smith from the game in the eighth inning, presumably due to the 5-0 score.

Tatis, batting in the top of the ninth, had gone to the ground after being hit in the left hand by a 93 mph fastball from Dodgers reliever Jack Little. The visceral scene came just two nights after the Padres and Dodgers traded seemingly retaliatory plunkings, with Tatis taking a fastball to the back and Los Angeles star Shohei Ohtani getting a heater in the right thigh. Despite those incidents, Tuesday’s game did not include any bench clearings.

Thursday, however, at least some tension continued to simmer below the surface before it erupted. Hard feelings between the teams were exacerbated in the top of the seventh when Bryce Johnson left the game after reliever Lou Trivino, the same pitcher who hit Tatis on Tuesday, drilled the reserve outfielder in the knee.

In the bottom of the ninth, after the melee in the top of the inning, Padres closer Robert Suarez hit Ohtani in the right shoulder blade with a 100 mph fastball and was immediately ejected. As his teammates looked toward him from the dugout, Ohtani waved them back as he walked to first base without further incident.

Yuki Matsui replaced Suarez, as the Padres held on for a 5-3 win to avoid a sweep.

“Our track record with me being in this seat … we’re not going to take anything,” Shildt said after Tuesday’s game. “We’re not going to start anything. We’re not going to be pushed around.”

“I can honestly say none of the guys that were hit by them, by us, was with any intent, not at all,” Roberts said Wednesday when asked if there would be any carry-over from Tuesday night’s escalation. Later, he added, “I don’t think it’s very raw for us.”

“I don’t think there’s anything to it,” Dodgers third baseman Max Muncy said. “The umpires felt they had to get a handle on it even though there’s nothing to get a handle on. They’ve got a job to do. I don’t think there was any intent on anything that has happened so far.”

It’s still hard to ignore the history between these two division rivals, who have squared off in three of the last five postseasons and inspired a rich collection of beef between the two sides.

Last October, Roberts accused Padres third baseman Manny Machado of throwing a baseball in his direction in “unsettling” fashion during last year’s National League Division Series, a series that also included an on-field delay when fans threw garbage onto the field at Dodger Stadium, egged on in part by Tatis and then-Padres outfielder Jurickson Profar.

Like Roberts, Tatis was asked Wednesday if he expected more extracurricular activity in the series.

“I don’t think so,” Tatis said. “I don’t see nothing growing. It’s a lot of Hall of Famers out there, future Hall of Famers out there, so everybody know how to handle themselves.”