Padres crush the hopes and spirits of the Dodgers

If there's one thing I love about Padres Fan in general, it's that we, as a collective, will travel to Dodger Stadium and treat that place like it's our ballpark... Assuming we take the lead late in the game.

It's the best thing ever and it happened tonight as the Padres went ahead in the 7th and held on to take the series against the Dodgers.

Atlanta did their part by winning tonight to try to make some space in the Wild Card race, but the Giants and St. Louis both lost tonight, so the Dodgers effectively stay where they were in their hunt for the post season.

Things I learned tonight:

• Chris Denorfia will be a Padre through 2014
• Clayton Richard left the game early to help his wife create human life
• Cameron Maybin will physically take away runs from the other team
• The Padres are very likely going to be good in 2013

I know the rich teams will reload, but at this point, assuming the Padres go out and keep a Chase Headley and pick up a Hiroki Kuroda or something like that, and figuring that a third of the 78 injured guys come back healthy, well, this doesn't look so bad. When was the last time that the Padres showed this much pitching potential and a set of bats in the heart of the lineup that looked like Chase Headley 2012, Carlos Quentin, Yonder Alonso, Yasmani Grandal? You throw in a Jedd Gyorko and you flesh out a bench with a Logan Forsythe, Mark Kotsay, Chris Denorfia, WIll Venable and, maybe it's the rash on my peck talking, but I like what I see.

In other news, jodes makes magic with her hands.