The rain was falling in San Diego and the Dodgers' season was circling the drain. Both things were hard to believe.
LA, somehow, was about to wash out of the 2022 MLB playoffs in the second round after 111 wins in the regular season. How was that even possible, especially after the Dodgers had won Game 1 of their NLDS against the Padres?
Yet there they were Saturday night trailing in the ninth inning and the top of the order going down quietly against rejuvenated San Diego closer Josh Hader.
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Hader struck out Mookie Betts, Trea Turner and Freddie Freeman in succession. Just like that, top-seeded LA was eliminated in Game 4, 5-3. This, after being nine outs away from forcing a decisive Game 5.
But just as in their first two losses in the series, a set of key moments doomed them in the clincher. This time, it was an inning from hell.
Game 4: Seventh inning
LA led 3-0 at the stretch. Will Smith's sacrifice fly in the top of the seventh appeared to give the Dodgers a big enough cushion, although they did strand two runners in the inning after loading the bases with none out.
Tyler Anderson and Chris Martin had combined to limit San Diego to four hits and two walks over the first six.
And then what happened?
The first five Padres reached in the bottom of the inning against Tommy Kahnle and Yency Almonte. Three of them scored. Tie game.
With two outs, Almonte mistakenly threw a pitch to Jake Cronenworth. He was supposed to throw over to first base, where Juan Soto was, to buy more time for Alex Vesia, who was warming, but missed a sign, manager Dave Roberts said.
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So with the count 1-0, in came Vesia finally. Out went the ballgame and the series.
After Soto stole second to put two runners in scoring position, Cronenworth won a lefty-lefty matchup with a go-ahead two-run single to center, making it a five-spot for the Padres in the inning.
"It ended up costing us," Roberts said of the Dodgers scoring just once in the top of the inning. "There was an opportunity to tack on, and we couldn't do that, and you saw those guys kind of being able to get hits with guys in scoring position to kind of scratch and claw back into the game and tack on."
The San Diego bullpen, which has been lights-out all postseason, gave the Dodgers nothing after that. Robert Suarez and then Hader retired the final six in a row with four punchouts.
Game 3: Fifth inning
LA appeared ready to answer Trent Grisham's fourth-inning home run with a big number in the top of the fifth. It had runners at second and third with no outs and the top of the order coming up against Pads starter Blake Snell, whose pitch count was rising.
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Betts got one run in with a sac fly, but Snell then got Turner to pop out and Freeman to ground out to preserve San Diego's lead. That sequence was emblematic of the Dodgers' offensive struggles in the series. LA was 5 for 34 with runners in scoring position in the four games.
Snell left with one on and one out in the sixth. The 'pen shut it down from there. LA managed just one baserunner over the final 3 2/3 in a pivotal 2-1 loss.
The relievers' full pitching line for the series: 16 innings, six hits, one run (earned), five walks, 20 strikeouts.
"They all throw hard. They all have good stuff. They're just trusting it, and they're throwing over the plate and making good pitches. When they do that, they're going to succeed at a high rate," Snell said after the win.
Game 2: Sixth inning
Defense turned out to be the culprit in this loss. With one out in a 3-3 game, Turner booted a potential double-play grounder by Wil Myers, putting runners at first and second.
The next batter, Jurickson Profar, singled home Cronenworth to give San Diego the lead for good. Cronenworth homered in the eighth for insurance.
The Dodgers had plenty of chances against San Diego's bullpen in this game, but the hitters stranded six runners over the final four innings of a 5-3 loss.
The Pads had clawed back into the series. They rode the resulting wave of confidence home and ended up sinking one of the best regular-season teams in baseball history.
"Hugely disappointing how it ended," Roberts said. "I think that right now it just stings a lot more in the moment. I don't know how long it's going to take to sort of look back and appreciate what we did do.
"But you've got to give the Padres credit. They outplayed us this series."
