There's an unlikely catalyst at the center of this burgeoning Padres-Dodgers rivalry.

For all the superstars and household names packed onto these two rosters, it was 23-year-old Padres center fielder Trent Grisham who ignited things. His Sept. 14 home run (and celebration) against Clayton Kershaw prompted a visceral reaction from the Dodgers bench. That moment would serve as the undercurrent for the fireworks in Game 2 of the National League Division Series on Wednesday night.

Laid back and unassuming off the field, Grisham is fiery on it. He punctuates his home runs by using American Sign Language to notate his season total. When the Dodgers dugout chirped at him in September, he responded by emphatically hopping onto home plate with both feet.

As such, Grisham saw no problem with Manny Machado throwing his bat Wednesday night. Or with Brusdar Graterol throwing his hat. Or with Machado’s reaction to Graterol's celebration.

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"The passion, the intensity, I'm sure when kids are watching that on TV, they're loving that," Grisham said. "When I watch big league games on TV, I would love to see stuff like that. It's fun. It's part of what makes you want to play big league baseball."

Grisham's place in baseball’s fastest-growing rivalry seems secure. He's set to be the Padres center fielder of the future, after a coup from general manager A.J. Preller, who landed Grisham and right-hander Zach Davies from Milwaukee in November.

In his Padres debut season, Grisham hit .251/.352/.456 with 10 home runs. Perhaps most importantly, he established himself as an excellent defender in center field. That wasn't always a certainty.

When the Padres acquired Grisham from the Brewers, he was coming off a costly error as a right fielder in the 2019 NL Wild Card Game. He'd made all of 14 starts in center. Yet that's where the Padres planned to use him. They were so confident he'd thrive there, they traded defensive wiz Manuel Margot to Tampa Bay on the eve of Spring Training.

"The way he moves, the jumps off the balls, all his movement patterns, it gave you a pretty good indicator," Padres manager Jayce Tingler said. "A week into Spring Training, watching it in games, you felt pretty confident it was going to play out well."

It played out about as well as the Padres could've imagined. Grisham was worth six Outs Above Average, according to Statcast, trailing only Jackie Bradley Jr. and Luis Robert, who were each worth seven, for the MLB best among outfielders. Dodgers star Cody Bellinger wasn't far behind, worth five OAA.

Bellinger, of course, stole the show on Wednesday night with his robbery of Tatis. But Grisham had the play of the game up to that point. He ranged deep into the right-center-field gap to take extra bases away from Will Smith, keeping the Padres within striking distance.

The play had a catch probability of just 25%. Grisham needed to cover 103 feet in 5.4 seconds to track down the ball, and he needed to do so with the right-center-field wall looming. It was an incredibly difficult play that Grisham made look easy.

That's usually how he does it. According to Statcast, Grisham's jumps -- the ground he covers in the first three seconds when chasing down a fly ball -- are among the best in baseball. After pitch release, Grisham has, on average, moved an elite 2.2 feet in the right direction more than an average fielder would have. (If 2.2 feet doesn’t sound like much, think about how many balls hit the tip of a glove or are missed by inches.)

Break it down further, and in the 1.5 seconds after pitch release, Grisham has covered more ground, on average, than any qualifying outfielder in baseball.

When Grisham corralled Smith's deep drive, he couldn't resist stirring the pot just a little bit more. Having made the final out in front of the Dodgers' bullpen, he finger-rolled the baseball into the bullpen, then turned and trotted back to his dugout.

Replays showed that ball trickling back into center field, likely chucked back onto the field by a Dodgers reliever. Contentious -- just the way Grisham likes these games against L.A.

"It's fun to play in a really competitive environment with a team that we're trying to beat really badly," Grisham said. "I'm sure over there, they want to beat us more than anything. It just makes it fun. We're competitors, that's what we like to do, and to do it on one of the biggest stages, like I said, it just makes it fun."