This weekend's series between the San Diego Padres and Los Angeles Dodgers is about as dramatic as the baseball gods could have drawn up. Obviously, these two teams have had some spicy confrontations in the past.

As Dennis Lin of The Athletic pointed out, the resurgence of Xander Bogaerts lately has been a huge reason for the Padres taking the lead from the Dodgers in the NL West. Ironically, his resurgence came after a loss to the Dodgers in Los Angeles.

As recently as July 3, the Los Angeles Dodgers were sitting on a comfortable nine-game lead in the NL West. The defending World Series champs had won four straight games and 15 of their last 18 games despite having a full 13-man pitching staff on the injured list and getting something less than superstar play from Mookie Betts.