For a first act it was deafening madness.

For a first step, it was a dizzying leap.

For a Game 1, it was a Game 7, where nine innings were fought, cheered and inhaled by more than 53,000 bouncing fans like it was the last baseball on earth.

Wait, the Dodgers are going to play more games like this?

Yes, absolutely, at least 10 more, as many as 18 more, and keep it coming, more, more, more, the senses can’t get enough of what the Dodgers brought to the San Diego Padres on Saturday night in their 7-5th win in Game 1 of the National League Division Series at Dodger Stadium.

It started with blue flags flying from the roofs and blue rags flying and fluttering around the packed venue.

It ended when Blake Treinen struck out Donovan Solano with the bases loaded in the eighth, then struck out Manny Machado with the tying run on the bases to end the ninth.

Pure madness from start to finish, in the midst of a rabble that never calmed down, never calmed down, never stopped.

“We’re going to fight, every pitch, every at-bat,” Teoscar Hernández said.

The Padres quickly led by three. Tree! Shohei Ohtani caught them in one motion.

The Padres quickly led again by two. Pop! The Dodgers passed them with a wild pitch and a Hernández rocket.

The Padres were reeling. The Dodgers were relentless, piling up after a Machado meltdown and finishing them off with a blistering bullpen that pitched six shutout innings.

More, yes, more, the Dodgers need more of this kind of fire if they want to exorcise their demons from October’s first round and finish off the Padres in a best-of-five rematch from two seasons ago.

“I could really feel the intensity of the stadium before the game started, and I really enjoyed it,” Ohtani said through interpreter Will Ireton.

He wasn’t the only one having fun. This was the Dodgers’ first playoff win in 725 days. Considering their recent history, this might have been the biggest Game 1 win in a Dodgers postseason since Kirk Gibson went deep against the Oakland Athletics in 1988.

The Dodgers desperately needed nights like this to avoid the feeling of familiar dread that would have descended on the clubhouse if they lost. They desperately needed to show they won’t embarrass themselves again in the postseason.

In just over three hours, which felt like three minutes on Saturday, they proved all that and more, more, more.

In 2022, the Padres won this series in four games against a haughty Dodgers team that lacked intensity. That’s clearly not happening this time; witness one action that led to zero points but meant everything.

Dodgers baserunner Freddie Freeman beats San Diego second baseman Jake Cronenworth’s tag to steal second base in the third inning on Saturday.

(Gina Ferazzi/Los Angeles Times)

In the third inning, Freddie Freeman, nursing a severely sprained ankle that nearly kept him out of the lineup, stole second base.

Seriously, he stole second place on one leg.

“If I can’t play the game the right way, I shouldn’t be there,” Freeman said. “I did well enough. Adrenaline took over. “

Last season in the same series, the Arizona Diamondbacks defeated a Dodgers team that lacked any offensive aggressiveness. That won’t happen this time; witness the start of the Dodgers’ go-ahead rally in the fourth inning.

It started when Tommy Edman laid down a perfect bunt to an exposed left side of the infield.

Believe it, someone in modern baseball has actually bunted to base.

“Pressure, every pitch, every at-bat,” Hernandez said. “I’m trying to pass it on to the other guy. I try to create situations.”

In the Dodgers’ 7–5 victory in the opening game of the National League Division Series, Shohei Ohtani hit a three-run home run to tie the game. And six scoreless innings from the Dodgers’ bullpen kept the lead from changing.

More fire, more fighting and of course the Dodgers added one weapon they were missing the past two years, perhaps the greatest weapon in baseball history.

More, more, more Ohtani! He’s officially unreal, he’s undeniably from another world, and he proved it again twice in three game-changing innings.

“He injected an absolute thunderbolt into the stadium,” said Max Muncy. “From then on it was, ‘Okay, we’ve got this. This is not the same as in recent years. ”

With two outs and two runners on base in the second inning and trailing 3-0, Ohtani fouled a ball off his left knee, grabbed the knee and winced in pain. But remember: this is Superman. He drove the ensuing four-seam fastball into the right-field pavilion at 110 mph, accompanied by a roar that literally swayed the press box. And forget all his usual outward politeness. His reaction to this last bit of brutality was nothing short of fierce, an angry thrown club and a prolonged howl.

After the Padres recovered and scored a few more runs off atrocious starter Yoshinobu Yamamoto – more on that later – Ohtani came again.

In the fourth, Superman again put two runners on base thanks to Edman’s surprise bunt and a single by Miguel Rojas. This time, Ohtani broke his bat, but he swung so hard that the ball still floated into center field for a bases-loaded single. After a run was scored on Adrian Morejon’s wild pitch, Hernandez hit a line drive single to center that scored two runs when rookie Jackson Merrill misplayed the short hop.

Shohei Ohtani celebrates after hitting a three-run home run in the second inning against the Padres in Game 1 of the NLDS on Saturday night.

(Robert Gauthier / Los Angeles Times)

That gave the Dodgers a one-run lead that expanded an inning later after Machado lazily uncorked a wild throw to first base that led to another Dodgers run.

The perpetually booed Machado did indeed homer in the first inning, but eventually came unstuck. The entire Padres team seemed nervous about the Dodgers’ fan noise and the Dodgers’ lineup attack.

“I’m just looking forward to throwing the first punch,” Dodgers manager Dave Roberts said before the game. “I expect us to be ready for a fight.”

They did, and they were.

Roberts added that he felt a sense of payback this past week.

“I think there is some intensity,” he said. “Some want to pay some people back and show how good we are. And I like that. I love that feeling that resonates in our clubhouse.”

With one exception, that feeling was echoed on the field on Saturday evening.

This is still a team with a starting pitching problem.

The game started in a rotation controversy, with the Dodgers switching gears late in the week and starting Yamamoto, the vulnerable $325 million offseason investment who had pitched all four games since June.

It was a terrible idea. It was initially guessed as a terrible idea by many, including here. It was a classic case of the Dodgers’ famed brain trust outsmarting itself.

Yamamoto is said to have recovered from a shoulder injury that cost him nearly three months this summer, but he had only thrown more than four innings once during his four-start comeback.

Their initial choice to start Game 1, Jack Flaherty, was pushed back to Game 2, with the thought that this way both Flaherty and the vulnerable Yamamoto could be available for Game 5.

But who plans Game 5 when the series hasn’t even started yet? Why hold back your best available starter to put Game 1 in the hands of a soft-shouldered pitcher who has never experienced a big-league October?

Yamamoto was terrible on almost every one of his 60 pitches, giving up five runs on five hits with two walks and one strikeout, and no one was fooled.

If this had happened the past two postseasons, the Dodgers would have been cooked. Not this time. Not this October. Not with this offense. Not with this burn.

“Our guys were relentless all night,” Roberts said.

One win less, 10 more wins to go.

More, more, more.