Padres pregame: History ‘has no bearing’ as Dodgers, Friars meet in Game 1 of NLDS

LOS ANGELES — 

So, they meet again.

For the 20th time this season, the Padres and Dodgers will face off — but this time in Game 1 of the National League Division Series (6:37 p.m. on FS1).

The Padres’ 89-win season is tied for the fifth-best campaign in franchise history. No Dodgers team had ever won 111 games, six better than that storied franchise’s best.

And yet the slate is clean for this best-of-five series.

“We have to look at it that way,” Padres manager Bob Melvin said. “They handed it to us pretty good this year, so we realize what we’re up against. I think it feels a little better now that we’re not looking at the standings and 18 games behind or 20 games behind, whatever it was.”

It was 22 games. The Dodgers won 14 of their 19 meetings, by a combined score of 109-47, and four of the Padres’ wins weren’t secured until their last at-bat.

But if the Dodgers were counting (how could they not?), they certainly know better than to overlook any opponent in the playoffs.

For all their regular-season dominance, they’ve got one World Series since 1988 and that was at the end of the COVID-19 silly season.

“The win/loss in the season (against the Padres) I think certainly has been skewed,” Dodgers manager Dave Roberts said. “I think that if you were a part and really follow each game, they could have gone either way, a lot of them. So it’s obviously a team (the Padres) that’s coming off a very big series, emotional series. A very talented team. We’re going to have our hands full. So there’s going to be no letdown on our part. The regular season has no bearing on the postseason. It’s the best of five.

“So history in our opinion doesn’t really matter.”

Good thing, because the only Padres with positive history against Dodgers starter Julio Urias (17-7, 2.16 ERA) is third baseman Manny Machado, who will bat third in a lineup unlikely any other they’ve rolled out in the postseason so far.

For starters, the Padres are facing their first lefty of the playoffs. Down the stretch Ha-Seong Kim usually batted leadoff against southpaws but Tuesday night Melvin is staying with Jurickson Profar, who was in that spot in the wild-card series against the Mets.

Both Brandon Drury and Wil Myers are in the lineup and Josh Bell is on the bench. Drury and Myers, who will be at DH and first base, respectively, are looking for their first hit of the postseason.

The switch-hitting Bell will give the Padres a versatile bat to fire off the bench.

As for Machado, he is 3-for-13 with a homer, three RBIs, one walk and six strikeouts through his first three postseason games.

He is the only Padre with an OPS above .740 in his career against Urias, as four homers have powered a .360/.407/.840 batting line across 27 regular season plate appearances.

Most of his teammates have done far, far worse against Urias, who led the NL in ERA and ERA-plus (194) and posted the lowest WHIP (0.96) of his career. Urias has a 2.19 ERA in 61 2/3 career innings against the Padres and went 4-0 with a 1.50 ERA, 18 strikeouts and a 1.04 WHIP in four starts this year.

(Baseball-reference.com)

The Union-Tribune’s Kevin Acee detailed Mike Clevinger’s NLDS do-over against the Dodgers here.

The 31-year-old last pitched Oct. 1, allowing one run in six innings in a win over the White Sox. Clevinger allowed 14 runs in 13 innings in losing twice in three starts this year against the Dodgers, who hit .291/.365/.582 with five homers in the meetings.

Here is how Clevinger has fared in his career against current Dodgers:

(Baseball-reference.com)

And here is the lineup Clevinger will face Tuesday: