Padres' belief becomes reality as they pull even vs. Dodgers

LOS ANGELES — The San Diego Padres navigated through most of this regular season as an enigma. The talent on their roster often did not match up with the quality of their play. Encouraging stretches typically followed poor ones. High expectations were usually tempered quickly. Along the way, though, they seemed to find strength in a singular thought: that they had yet to reach their ceiling and thus their best baseball was still in front of them.

It has apparently shown up at the most important juncture.

The Padres, the No. 5 seed in the National League, have begun these playoffs by winning three of five road games against two teams that combined for 212 wins during the regular season. They took two of three against the New York Mets at Citi Field over the weekend, stunning them in the wild-card round, and they have now split the first two games of their division series against a Los Angeles Dodgers team that dominated them over the previous six months. The Padres' latest victory, by a 5-3 score at Dodger Stadium on Wednesday night, saw them display stellar defense, string together timely hits and shut down baseball's best offense in the late innings.

Now the Padres will return home to Petco Park for the first postseason home games in San Diego — with fans in attendance — since 2006.

Suddenly a path toward defeating the mighty Dodgers seems very clear.

«Ultimately, I think we all believe in each other,» Padres third baseman Manny Machado said. «We believed in each other all year. We've been doing it all year as well. It's just clicking for us now as a group. It's just a matter of wanting it. We want to get to the World Series, we want to bring a championship to San Diego. Ultimately the group is just getting together and