Good morning from San Francisco,

Big win for the Padres last night.

Because it wasn’t a loss.

The Mets and Braves won, which meant a tight four-team race for three available wild-card spots would have become even tighter had the Padres not followed suit.

They did follow suit by beating the Giants 5-0. And that meant another day fell from the calendar without the Braves or Mets gaining ground.

We hear again and again that what is important is getting in the tournament. So keeping the Braves, in particular, at bay is big.

It is arguably bigger than even the Padres swapping spots with the Diamondbacks and moving into the top spot in the National League wild-card standings.

For the Padres to not make the playoffs, the Braves have to gain 3½ games on them in just more than two weeks. As explained in my story (here) from Thursday’s off-day, that is because the Padres hold the tiebreaker over the Braves by virtue of having won four of the teams’ seven meetings this season.

Here is what it would have to look like for the Braves to overtake the Padres:

By the way, shouldn’t Padres fans be rooting for the Dodgers the next three days?

The Dodgers, who lead the Padres by 4½ games in the NL West, are playing the Braves through Monday.

The Padres are still shooting for the division title (and the first-round bye that would bring). But the 4½ games represents a lot of ground to make up on L.A.

And again, every time the Braves lose, the Padres are that much closer to clinching a playoff spot.

The big win

You can read in my game story (here) how the Padres got up early last night and Dylan Cease and three relievers shut out the Giants.

Cease’s performance was a much-needed positive step for the Padres.

“I feel like I haven’t contributed in like a month,” Cease said. “So it feels nice to contribute.”

Yes, the version of Cease able to work out of limited trouble while allowing just four hits and striking out 10 last night is what the Padres need going into the postseason.

In his previous six starts — since immediately after his Aug. 6 outing was shortened to one inning due to rain — Cease had a 5.01 ERA.

That was not comforting for a team that acquired Cease to give it a chance to win most of his starts in the regular season and to give it a difference-making rotation in the postseason.

Here is a look at Cease’s wild ride in 2024:

If last night is the beginning of another upswing, it would be good timing.

“I think I just got out of rhythm,” Cease said. “And it’s really easy to kind of get out of rhythm and, if you’re not focused on the right things, kind of stay out of rhythm. So, glad to have this one, and I think hopefully we keep trending upward come playoff time.”

Cease’s 1K K

With his third strikeout last night, Cease reached 1,000 strikeouts for his career.

“It means a lot,” said Cease, who had the ball used to get the strikeout of Donovan Walton in a plastic case in his locker. “Obviously longevity and execution and performance and all that good stuff.”

Cease reached 1,000 strikeouts in his 831st career inning, making him the fourth-fastest to ever reach the mark behind Robbie Ray (811), Yu Darvish (813) and Blake Snell (821).

Ray and Snell pitch for the Giants, which meant the four pitchers in MLB history to reach 1,000 strikeouts in fewer than 850 innings were at Oracle Park last night.

New guy makes good

Brandon Lockridge got into his first major-league game last night, replacing Jurickson Profar on first base as a pinch-runner in the ninth inning.

Lockridge was ready, and he did not want to wait too long.

So he took off running and stole second base on Camilo Doval’s first pitch to Manny Machado.

“The adrenaline was going,” Lockridge said. “If I stayed out there too long I might get nervous. So I liked the matchup. I said, ‘If he gives me a good leg kick. I’m going to go.’ I just trusted I could beat the throw. Gave it a shot. It was awesome.”

It is a good thing Lockridge got a good jump and is fast (clocked at 29.2 feet per second over his fastest portion of his run from first to second). Because Doval threw a 98.9 mph cutter to the outside corner that catcher Patrick Bailey fired perfectly to second base.

Here is video of his steal.

“Made it a little closer than I’d have liked it,” said Lockridge, who scored on Machado’s ensuing single. “He’s a really good-throwing catcher. I was just thankful it stood.”

The task over the next couple weeks for Lockridge, who was acquired from the Yankees on July 30 in exchange for reliever Enyel De Los Santos, is to show he can add value to a playoff roster.

“We like aggressive players, and (it) looks like he’s got the skill set to help us out in some areas,” manager Mike Shildt said. “… We’re gonna find out more and more. But anybody that can go in and grab a bag like that and go play defense the way we hear he can play it and be aggressive and trust himself and make good decisions, it adds to our arsenal.”

Tangled Webb

The Padres had hit Logan Webb pretty well recently. But they had not turned that into many runs or much winning before last night.

“Webb has been a pitcher that has been giving us a little trouble,” said Fernando Tatis Jr., whose two-run homer two batters into the game got the Padres scoring started. “Today, we went with the mentality we were the attacker, and we had some good results.”

The Padres scored three runs in last night’s first inning and added an unearned run in fourth, Webb’s final inning. He allowed seven hits and threw 83 pitches.

The Padres had 10 hits in each of Webb’s previous two starts against them, but the Giants won both games, with Webb limiting the damage by allowing three runs in six innings last Saturday and two runs in seven innings on April 7.

The Padres did beat the Giants on March 28, doing the bulk of their scoring following Webb’s departure after allowing two runs on five hits over six innings.

In his final start last season, Webb allowed the Padres one run on nine hits in a complete game on Sept. 25.

Merrill climbing

Jackson Merrill doubled twice last night to set a Padres rookie record with 54 extra-base hits in a season.

With 14 games remaining, Merrill is just the 25th rookie in MLB history to have at least 25 doubles, six triples and 23 home runs.

Here are all the other rookies age 21 or under to have reached those thresholds:

Kim update

Shortstop Ha-Seong Kim played catch Friday but did not throw across the diamond, as he had been doing before being shut down nearly a week ago.

“We’ll evaluate how he throws and see how he is able to take that next step,” Shildt said “He’s starting over to a point. … He’s not starting from (zero). It definitely has gone back in his throwing intensity.”

The Padres maintain Kim, out since jamming his right (throwing) shoulder Aug. 18, could return this season. The initial timetable given by the medical staff was that he could be sidelined three to six weeks.

Facing Giants

Joe Musgrove will start tonight for the first time since he gave up six runs in a span of six batters (and 10 pitches) on Sunday against the same team.

“I have some idea what I’ll do differently, but I don’t think there is a lot to find in there. Poor execution on a couple pitches — pitches in the zone where they weren’t missing. … I think it’s maybe adjusting sooner than we did.”

Musgrove retired the first 10 batters he faced on Sunday before giving up a bloop double Tatis lost in the sun, two singles and three home runs and then another double before getting out of the inning.

“I’m not looking too much into the results of the last one,” he said. “It doesn’t feel good, but the odds I go out here and give up that much damage on (that few) pitches are not very high. My plan was working well until it wasn’t.”

Tidbits

• Luis Arraez extended his hitting streak to 11 games, tying his season high. He did so by getting three hits for the fourth time in the past five games.  He is batting .468 (22-for-47) during the streak.
• Arraez is batting .320 and has a 14-point lead over Atlanta’s Marcel Ozuna in the NL batting title race. Arraez is attempting to become the first player to win a batting title with three different teams. (And should he do so, he will have done it in three consecutive seasons.)
• Tatis has homered in three consecutive games for the first time since 2021, the year he led the National League wiuh 42 home runs. His first-inning homer last night was his third in a span of nine at-bats.
• Profar went 2-for-5 last night to extend his hitting streak to seven games, during which he is batting .310 (9-for-29). Profar also has an 11-game on-base streak, during which he is getting on base at a .404 clip.
• The Padres have scored in the first inning in four of their past seven games and 14 of their past 33 games. They had done so in just seven of their previous 46 games.
• Tanner Scott threw 10 pitches in a 1-2-3 seventh inning, Jason Adam 10 pitches in a 1-2-3 eighth and Jeremiah Estrada 10 pitches in a 1-2-3 ninth last night.
• Estrada has not allowed a hit in his past six appearances (5⅓ innings). He has not allowed a baserunner in his past four outings (3⅓ innings).
• The Padres were just 3-for-14 with runners in scoring position. But they important thing might be the abundance of chances. They are 42-10 when having at least 10 at-bats with runners in scoring position this season.
• The Padres had 12 hits last night. They are 32-3 when they have at least 12 hits, and the 35 times they have had at least that many hits is most in the majors.

Last word

This tweet taking issue with Merrill batting seventh made me laugh.

It is not unreasonable to wonder why the guy hitting .289 (Merrill) and with a penchant for driving in runs would hit above the guy batting .246 (Jake Cronenworth, since the Padres want to alternate their left- and right-handed batters as much as possible.)

All I can offer is that, as explained (here) in a story I wrote a couple weeks ago, the Padres have remained committed to not putting too much on Merrill and don’t want to mess with something that is working. That said, they also have not ruled out hitting him higher.

All right, that’s it for me.

Talk to you tomorrow.

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