LOS ANGELES — The pot finally boiled over, as the Padres and Dodgers finished their four-game series and the Padres completed a gauntlet with a 5-3 victory over the Dodgers.

It ended with a brouhaha and a scare.

The game seemed all but decided when the tension between the teams that had lingered through most of the four games here reached a zenith in the ninth inning.

After Fernando Tatis Jr. was hit by a pitch from rookie Jack Little, Padres manager Mike Shildt came out to check on him along with an athletic trainer.

As he stood over Tatis, Shildt yelled toward the Dodgers dugout.

Suddenly, Dodgers manager Dave Roberts charged out yelling back. Roberts reached where Shildt was and appeared to shove the Padres manager as both teams flooded onto the field.

A meeting with much yelling back and forth ensued. Virtually every person in a uniform stood tightly bunched in a circle near the backstop.

Play resumed after about 10 minutes, and the Dodgers proceeded to put two runners on against Sean Reynolds before he got one out.

Robert Suarez came in, allowed the two runners to score and got an out before hitting Shohei Ohtani with a pitch and getting ejected.

Yuki Matsui was called on with two outs and runners at the corners.

Miguel Rojas came to bat as the potential tying run, and Matsui walked him.

That brought Dalton Rushing to the plate as the potential winning run.

A catcher’s balk, when the ball got stuck in Martin Maldonado’s chest protector, made it 5-3 before Matsui struck out Rushing.

The emotion-filled and Xander Bogaerts-powered victory was just the second on a seven-game trip and fifth in the 14 games the Padres played against National League West opponents over the past 17 days.

And so, the 2½ weeks that were supposed to be so important have led only to two or three or maybe four more weeks that are even more important.

That was going to be true regardless of what happened Thursday.

It was still significant that Bogaerts homered and doubled, hit two singles and scored three times, given his impotence at the plate most of the season and his importance to their future success.

It was a good step for rookie Ryan Bergert to pitch 4⅔ scoreless innings in his first game against the Dodgers’ loaded lineup.

A solid outing by three of the team’s four higher-leverage relievers was a rebound of sorts for a crew that has had some rough outings over the past several weeks.

It was encouraging for an offense to spread around 11 hits and add on to a lead so they could hold it. That had not happened enough, as Thursday was the 18th straight game in which the Padres held a lead at some point and just the eighth that they won.

But questions abound for a team that had a chance to move to the top of the division when June began and now could be trending toward being trade deadline sellers by July.

They are not there now.

They won their 40th game on Thursday and are in possession of the National League’s final playoff spot, a half-game up on the Brewers and Cardinals.

The season is not quite half over.

The Padres were 37-37 through 74 games last season, would fall to 37-40 and sit just a game over .500 at the All-Star break.

That team did not start 14-3.

The reality is the Padres won just 17 of their past 40 games. Should they continue at that rate, they will be below .500 by the middle of July.

That would be two weeks before the trade deadline.

The Padres continue to seek a right-handed hitter to play left field, along with a catcher and bench help. And while there is no way to know whether King’s nerve impingement in his throwing shoulder will allow him to pitch again this season, they expect Darvish back in a few weeks.

But the reality of their situation was summed up by Tatis on Wednesday.

“We were trying to gain some room,” he said. “But it’s not looking that way. So we just need to keep getting better.”

Their attempt at doing so Thursday began with Bogaerts giving them a 1-0 lead in the second inning by lining a home run over the wall in center field.

That was their only hit in the first four innings.

Bogaerts got their next hit and scored their next run as well.

He led off the fifth inning with a chopper to third base that Max Muncy could not hold onto, advanced to third on a single by Jake Cronenworth and ran home on Jose Iglesias’ sacrifice fly.

Bergert retired the first seven batters he faced before Tommy Edman singled with one out in the third inning. A two-out single by  Ohtani followed before Mookie Betts grounded out to Manny Machado.

A two-out walk by Edman and a single by Hyeseong Kim gave the Dodgers runners at the corners again in the fifth. Bergert would not get the chance to get out of that jam, as Shildt decided two times through the order and a season-high 71 pitches was enough.

Left-hander Adrián Morejón came in to face Ohtani for the third time in eight days and got him out for the third time — this time on a check swing Ohtani put in play in front of the mound.

Morejón set down Betts, Will Smith and Freddie Freeman in order in the sixth.

Jeremiah Estrada worked the seventh and Jason Adam the eighth.

The Padres built their cushion with a run in the seventh and two in the eighth.

Back-to-back doubles by Bogaerts and Cronenworth to start the seventh inning made it 3-0. Arraez led off the eighth with a triple and scored on Gavin Sheets’ single before the Padres loaded the bases and Jose Iglesias walked.