And here we go...

The Dodgers come to Petco Park tonight for a series that the entire baseball world has been waiting for.

Hello! Before I get started, know that I will be on vacation this week.

In all likelihood, I’ll still be finding time to write posts on Bandwagon Beach because I’ll still be finding time to watch this Padres/Dodgers series and I’m sure I will have feelings about every game. But, a very smart Padres fan offered to help me with the workload this week, so don’t be surprised when you get a few guest posts.

Now, let’s get down to business.

San Diego Padres vs. Los Angeles Dodgers

This is the series that the entire baseball world has been looking forward to all season. This rivalry has been called “the new Yankess/Red Sox” a number of times, and it somehow lived up to the hype when the Padres and Dodgers played 7 games against each other back in April.

It felt like a playoff series, and a pretty successful one for San Diego who won 4 of the 7 games, and then the teams separated with plans to meet again in two months.

So much has happened since then. Dustin May, known Padres killer, is out for the season. The Padres offense fell apart against stiff competition and a difficult schedule before finding itself against the Reds this past week. Somehow Albert Pujols is both on the Dodgers now and not terrible? And the San Francisco Giants just kept chugging along.

The Padres sit 5 games back from the top of the NL West and 3.5 games back from the Dodgers, who are in 2nd place. They could maybe survive losing this series but getting swept would make the rest of the season a real challenge.

The good news

The biggest difference between the Padres and the Dodgers (and Giants)? The Padres are below .500 on the road. All three teams are similarly great at home, and the Padres will be hosting the Dodgers this time and then not again until late August.

San Diego has also tinkered with their rotation so that they can throw their top 3 starters at the Dodgers, something that L.A. had done last time but the Padres hadn’t bothered with.

The best news at all might simply be that the Padres have found themselves and their offense again. This series is the end of their stretch of 42 games in 44 days, and I’m certain they’re still exhausted, but playing in front of a packed house of screaming fans really has given them life and made them look like the team we saw back in April and May.

The Padres have no reason to fear the Dodgers right now.

The bad news

As hot as the Padres have been for the last few days, the Dodgers have been even hotter. They’ve won 10 of their last 12 games, and their pitching doesn’t seem quite as affected by MLB cracking down on spider tack as many had predicted.

Oh, and the last time we saw Fernando Tatis Jr., who needed to be historically good for the Padres to take 4 of 7 from the Dodgers earlier in the year, he was injured. Supposedly, him leaving that game was cautionary and he should be back in the lineup tonight without issue, but you’d rather him be feeling as good as ever heading into this one.

This is why they play, and why we watch

As I stated above, I’m on vacation. So don’t expect much in the way of analysis from me (so it’s good that I’m bringing in a ringer!), but I wouldn’t miss out on watching these games for anything.

They will be high stress rollercoasters, but these games are exactly why we love sports. Having two titans of baseball, who don’t particularly like each other, battling for supremacy is why sports exist at all.

Enjoy the games, everyone.