LOS ANGELES – Manny Machado settled back into the Dodger Stadium dugout after Sunday’s seventh inning, gathered as many San Diego Padres teammates as possible and implored them to refocus. It was a necessary reminder. In the previous two innings, superstar Fernando Tatis Jr. had, in Machado’s mind, been knocked down on purpose. They had seen Machado spar verbally with Los Angeles Dodgers starter Jack Flaherty, at one point seemingly challenging each other to a postgame fight. And they had watched as fans threw baseballs and beer cans in the direction of Jurickson Profar and Tatis, respectively, causing a nine-minute delay and further escalating the tension of an already heated National League Division Series.

“It was just a reminder of who we really are as a group,” Tatis said of the meeting, “and how crazy we can make a place crazy.”

The Padres followed by homering four more times, turning a nail-biter into a laugher and winning Game 2 of the NLDS 10-2 and even this best-of-five series at a game apiece.

“A hostile environment,” Padres manager Mike Shildt said. “What I got out of it was a bunch of guys showing up in front of a big, hostile crowd with stuff being thrown at them and saying, ‘We’re going to talk our piece. We’re not going back down – we’re going to take our game to a take it to the next level, we’re going to be together and we’re going to take care of business”.

The altercation between Profar and the left field fans at Dodger Stadium started playfully. Mookie Betts lifted a deep ball in the bottom of the first inning that seemed headed for a game-tying home run, except Profar reached into the crowd and took the ball away. Profar raved about a catch he considered the biggest of his career, egging on nearby fans so long that Betts got halfway to third base before everyone else realized he didn’t homer. Profar did not apologize.

“That was one of my wishes: I wanted to rob a homer,” he said. “And I did it in a playoff game.”

Six innings later, as Yu Darvish prepared to start the bottom of the seventh inning while leading 4-1, a fan threw a baseball in Profar’s direction. As he approached an umpire about the incident, another baseball rolled next to him, which further animated Profar as he gathered with the umpiring crew in shallow left field. Shildt joined him and shouted toward the fans in left field. Soon, all the Padres starting position players came together.

“We have to stick together as a team at a moment like this,” Tatis said. “And the group that we are, we obviously stick together. And we saw our boy Profar getting balls thrown at him. He has the right to be angry, but at the end of the day we understand that we are on a mission. “

Nearly two dozen security guards lined the Dodger Stadium foul lines as players began repositioning themselves on defense. Then three beer cans landed on the warning track in right field near Tatis, who had spent most of the night chatting with fans shouting obscenities in his direction — especially after he made a leaping catch on a Freddie Freeman line drive in the fourth . Another bottle of beer ended up in the nearby Padres bullpen.

“I’ve seen over a thousand games here, over a thousand games in this stadium,” Dodgers manager Dave Roberts said. “And I’ve never seen anything like it.”

Profar claimed that fans also wanted to throw objects on the field in Game 1 before the Dodgers took the lead and ultimately won.

Tatis, who wagged his tongue at fans from the dugout and mocked them with fake tears from right field, seemed to be the least bothered of his teammates.

“Man,” he said, “it’s definitely wild out there. But at the same time, it’s a good environment for baseball, even if people get a little carried away with their emotions. But it’s a good back and forth. It’s a show and we have to enjoy every moment.”

Tatis homered twice, in the first and ninth inning, and is now 9-for-14 in his first four postseason games. In between home runs, leading off the sixth inning, Flaherty belted in an 0-1 sinker and dropped it to the left side. Flaherty quickly apologized, but Tatis never looked in his direction and kept his gaze forward as he walked toward first base. Tatis later hinted that he didn’t believe Flaherty threw at him on purpose, citing how close the game still was. Machado disagreed.

“If you can’t get him out, don’t hit him, right?” Machado said. “They have the best player in the game, right? (Shohei) Ohtani? We’re not trying to hit Ohtani. We’re trying to get him out. Don’t go out there and try to hit Tati.”

Flaherty said the idea of ​​hitting Tatis in that situation — with the Dodgers trailing by just three runs, no one out and having retired seven consecutive batters — “doesn’t make sense.”

“I understand what it looks like,” Flaherty said. “That’s just the way the game is. You think I’m going to do that with 3-1 and 3-4-5 ahead? I get it, emotions are running high. Dude, I understand what it looks like… But that’s not the situation to hit someone. I’m just not going to make the same mistake I made in the first inning and throw it up the middle.”

After Tatis reached first base, Profar exchanged words with Dodgers catcher Will Smith, who called him an “irrelevant” member of the Padres lineup earlier this season. The next batter, Machado, struck out swinging, and Flaherty yelled in his direction and told him to “sit down.” Machado didn’t seem to hear Flaherty until he approached his dugout and saw teammates shouting toward the field. Flaherty said he was “really excited.”

“Competition, right?” Machado said with a smile. “Things that happen between the lines. People just go back and forth. He’s competing for his ball club and I’m trying to get a big hit for my team.”

But Flaherty and Machado continued at it over the next half inning, with Flaherty shouting from the dugout railing and Machado snapping back from the left side of the infield. Flaherty said Machado threw a baseball into the Dodgers’ dugout. Machado said he always throws baseballs into dugouts for ball boys or girls to pick up before the start of the half innings, whether it’s in his own dugout or the other team’s.

Flaherty said: “I wouldn’t have reacted if it was just a coin toss.”

“No one saw that, but that was the reason the referees were with him,” Flaherty added. “Everyone saw the end of it, that was me and him, but I wasn’t there to talk to him. I was there to sit in the dugout with my teammates. I just happened to be the one who got caught talking to him talked.”

In the end, all that mattered was that the Padres won a game they needed — and that they would get back-to-back games at home, in front of what promises to be a raucous crowd at San Diego’s Petco Park.

The tension will only increase.

“It’s a beautiful thing,” Machado said, “to play postseason baseball.”