The opening statement brought two batters into the game, with Mookie Betts hitting a ball to Chula Vista as the stunned stadium enveloped him in the sweetest silence.

The follow-up statement came soon after, with Shohei Ohtani driving a ball down the right field line at about 1,000 miles per hour, the silence turning to shock.

The closing argument appeared shortly afterwards, with Will Smith firing another weak throw over the center field fence as one dugout danced and the other sulked – game over.

Three innings, one message, powerfully delivered Wednesday from the Dodgers to the suddenly tormented and humiliated San Diego Padres:

This isn’t 2022. This isn’t happening again. This won’t be easy. This goes far.

Do the Padres want to steal this National League Division series again? This time they will have to do it in a winner-take-all game at Dodger Stadium.

Buckle up. Strike down. The fifth and final game in this brawl takes place Friday night at Chavez Ravine, with the Dodgers providing the drama with a desperate 8-0 victory at Petco Park on Wednesday night.

It was the biggest shutout win in Dodgers playoff history. It gave life to the possibility of one of the biggest postseason series wins in Dodgers history.

“See…you…Friday!” a resilient group of Dodgers fans chanted against Petco and it should be something to see indeed.

It will be the biggest playoff elimination game at Dodger Stadium since Chris Taylor won the wild-card game with a walk-off homer against the St. Louis Cardinals in 2021.

Read more: Dodgers show no panic and dominate Padres to force a decisive NLDS Game 5

But this feels bigger than that. This is Dodger Stadium vs. Machado, Shohei vs. Tatis, grinders vs. showboaters, the real highway series.

“Going into the postseason, it’s a street fight,” Dodgers manager Dave Roberts said. “It’s about people, players, and your desire must be greater than that of your opponent. And seeing our guys go through what they went through and seeing how they respond really gets me excited about Game 5.”

Here are the top two teams left in the playoffs. Since the New York Mets upset the Philadelphia Phillies in the other National League division series, the winner of this game will likely be the favorite to not only advance to the World Series, but win it.

It’s only fitting that this neighborhood stalemate, which was swept and stunned by the Padres in four games two years ago, would come down to one game, one night, one more drama.

The series opener featured a monstrous first hit from the home run-hitting Ohtani. The second game was filled with showboating Padres who taunted bottle-throwing fans. When Game 3 came to San Diego, the Dodgers didn’t make it at first, failing to show the bulk of a mediocre loss.

That set up Wednesday’s Game 4, a game in which the Dodgers entered missing two key injured players — Freddie Freeman and Miguel Rojas — and were forced to navigate without a starter and with only a bullpen.

All this, and there was a statistic going around that teams that lead a five-game series 2-1 at home win the series 82% of the time.

As it turned out, the Dodgers had the Padres right where they wanted them.

During pre-match practices, they were so loose that they played mini golf in the clubhouse.

“I think it was a lot lighter than people would think,” Mookie Betts said. “We weren’t tense. We had fun, laughed, joked. We knew what we were going to do.”

Once the game started, they were relaxed and ready to compete, with the best example being Betts, who has two home runs and three RBIs in his last two playoff games after having no home runs and one RBI in his previous nine.

“We have a bunch of grinders and a bunch of fighters,” Betts said. “We knew this wouldn’t be easy. Nothing is easy. And so you just have to take the cards you’re dealt and play them. And that’s what we did.”

The lineup swung smart and free, especially against Padres starter Dylan Cease, who scored three runs in 1⅔ innings after the Dodgers predicted they could hit him on a short rest.

“One of the things we are thinking about is that he is not 100% rested, we are going to put him to work,” Teoscar Hernández said before the match.

The aggressiveness also returned, with Michael Kopech brazenly throwing in to a flattened Fernando Tatis Jr.

Then, of course, there was the brilliant bullpen work, with eight Dodgers pitchers combining to hold the Padres to five hits and two extra-base hits. The Padres haven’t scored in 15 innings dating back to the second inning of Game 3, and they have to think about that Friday, when they’ll surely face some of these Dodgers relievers again.

“Obviously the energy makes it a little different, but it’s the same job,” said Kopech, who pitched a one-hit inning. “If we have to come out and play our roles a little differently than normal, we’ll figure it out in the end. So it is important for us to be able to do that at a big moment like this.”

The only thing that could stop the Dodgers this night, it seemed, was umpire Mark Ripperger at third base.

With two outs in the fourth, Ohtani made a daring dash around third on a sharp grounder just inside the third base line. He could have stolen a point, but the ball bounced off Ripperger and was eventually picked up by Manny Machado, who put Ohtani home.

Cameras later captured Ohtani yelling at Ripperger in a rare show of anger.

A day after grinding their way to the brink of elimination, the Dodgers showed they could be emotionally prepared to deal with their intense little brothers.

To prove it, both they and their fans have one more chance, one more moment, one more match.

Evader up.

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This story originally appeared in the Los Angeles Times.