The final game of the four-game showdown between the Dodgers and Padres wasn’t just baseball – it was complete mayhem. The Padres may have salvaged a 5-3 win to dodge a sweep, but the scoreboard wasn’t what lit up headlines. Old-school rivals turned the diamond into a battlefield – fastballs flew and dugouts emptied in seconds. It wasn’t about stats anymore; it was personal. When Fernando Tatis Jr. took a 93 mph fastball straight to his right hand, the question wasn’t if it hurt, but why it happened.

Padres manager Mike Shildt didn’t need to guess. The smoke hadn’t even cleared, and he was already breathing fire.

It all started in the ninth inning, when Dodgers rookie Jack Little pitched to Tatis with L.A. trailing 5-0. Tatis fell to the ground after being hit by the ball, visibly in pain. Shildt rushed out of the dugout, furious, yelling at the Dodgers’ dugout. That’s when Dave Roberts lost his cool. He stormed out, and what followed was a fiery face-off. The Dodgers’ skipper was seen pushing Mike Shildt.

But tensions eventually cooled, and nothing spiraled out of control. What caused this immediate reaction from Shildt, though? After all, it was Tatis, the Padres’ powerhouse, who took the hit and had to exit, and it’s hard to believe it was purely coincidental.

“We got to the ninth not in isolation. We got to the ninth over a combination of things,” Shildt reflected on the incident while speaking to the media. “Look, they like to pitch in, they’re aggressive pitching in. That’s fine. People pitch Tati in. He’s been hit five times by this group and played a lot of dodgeball because he’s athletic. He’s been hit three times in the last seven games. And you can put it any way you want, but he hasn’t been hit more than four times by any other team, period, in his career,” he added.

Well, this has happened multiple times in recent years to Tatis against the Dodgers. In fact, it is his sixth time across 67 games taking a hit from a Dodgers pitcher. Given the circumstances, the skipper’s frustration is entirely understandable.

When asked whether Roberts’ reaction surprised him, Shildt responded, “No, I wasn’t shocked at all. I mean, you know, I went to their dugout. He came out, and that’s it.”

Surprisingly, Tatis getting hit wasn’t the end of it. Just moments after that incident, Shohei Ohtani was also hit by a 100 mph fastball. That came from Padres relief pitcher Robert Suarez.

Guess what? There is another eerie similarity between the two accidents. This was the second time both Ohtani and Tatis were hit in the past three days.

But after the incident, while the Dodgers dugout would have stormed in again, Ohtani handled the situation maturely. Clutching his right shoulder where the ball struck, he calmly signaled his teammates not to escalate the situation. But Roberts didn’t hide his anger, this time, either. He was caught shouting, “I’m gonna beat your a—,” at Shildt on live TV.

But the game did continue without tension boiling over any further. But Shildt isn’t ready to let this go, at least not anytime soon.

Mike Shildt sends a warning

While fan clashes are common, it hits differently when tensions erupt on the field. The Padres and Dodgers have a history, and as NL West rivals, their matchups rarely pass without sparks. But Thursday’s benches-clearing altercation following the Tatis incident seemed to be the final straw for manager Mike Shildt.

“Before this series, and I can back this up with evidence, the track record speaks for itself—teams that I manage don’t get into altercations like this, because teams that I manage don’t throw at people,” Shildt reacted. “But also, teams that I manage don’t take anything, and after a while, I’m not going to take it. I’m not going to take it on behalf of Tatis. I’m not going to take it on behalf of our team, intentional or not. And if you wanna call that old school? Then yeah, we’ll play old-school baseball,” he cleared his stance.

Now, that surely sounds like a threat rather than a warning.

With the season entering a crucial stretch, the response from Shildt is understandable. They can’t just sit back and watch. And just like he said, with an “old-school” mindset, retaliation might be on the table too.

Both teams don’t face each other again until August. “We’re going to get after it for the next two months,” Shildt said to ESPN’s Alden Gonzalez. “And they’ll be on the schedule two months from now, and we’ll be ready.”

Well, one thing is clear. Shildt is not about to let anyone, especially the Dodgers, mess with his team.