Good morning,
That was about as apt a finish to the home schedule as could be for the 2024 Padres.
They scored three runs in the eighth inning yesterday to beat the White Sox 4-2.
It was their 96th inning scoring three or more runs. It gave them their 37th comeback victory, their 32nd victory secured in the seventh inning or later and their 21st victory in which the deciding runs were scored in their final offensive half-inning.
Just as appropriate was the way the inning was constructed — with doubles by Donovan Solano and Luis Arraez, a sacrifice fly by Jurickson Profar and a home run by Fernando Tatis Jr.
“It’s a complete roster,” Mike Shildt said. “A.J. (Preller, the Padres president of baseball operations) deserves a lot of credit, but our players ultimately get the credit. They’re the ones out there executing. But it’s a very complete roster. We’ve been able to demonstrate how to win games a lot of different ways. We do play a lot of close games, and we’ve been able to execute and be on top of most of them.”
Solano is the free agent they signed to a minor-league deal in April who, especially in May and June, had big hit after big hit.
Arraez is the batting titlist the Padres acquired in a trade on May 4, who so often uses what Shildt calls his “magic wand” to conjure up a hit.
Profar is the “glue guy” who turned into an All-Star for the bargain price of $2.5 million.
Tatis is Tatis.
“It’s really fitting,” Tatis said. “I’m really happy that it went that way. Even more happy too that every single guy in this clubhouse has put the work that has come together as one group, and it just shows how we have been playing outside on the field. … We’re never out. Since the first (game) that we played baseball this year, we have shown it all around the year. We know what we have been doing over here is very special, and we have the talent to go all the way. But it’s time to take care of business, one day at a time.”
You can read my game story (here) for a recap of what happened yesterday, the attendance records that were broken and what is ahead for the Padres in the final week of the regular season.
You can read Bryce Miller’s column (here) about how the Padres are the last team anyone should want to meet in the playoffs.
The picture
The Padres, Mets and Braves won. The Diamondbacks lost.
The Padres can clinch a playoff spot with a win tomorrow night in Los Angeles. That is the only way they can clinch that day. If they lose, even a loss by the Braves to the Mets tomorrow would leave open the remote possibility of a three-way tie between the three teams that would end with the Padres as the odd team out.
Here are the National League wild-card standings.
The Dodgers won as well.
That eliminated the Diamondbacks from the division race, as they are six games back and lose the head-to-head tiebreaker with the Dodgers.
The Padres still control their own destiny, as they won the season series against the Dodgers. So they can win the division by winning out, because doing so would include sweeping the Dodgers in their three-game series in Los Angeles starting tomorrow. (The Padres could also win the division by going 5-1, but the Dodgers would have to be no better than 2-4 this week).
“This is what we set ourselves up for,” Shildt said. “This is what we started — even before spring training — talking about. And this is what we have set our sights on, and we’re pretty clear about it. We don’t talk a lot about it. We’re more of an action versus words kind of team, you know. So now we put ourselves in a position to go and go play for the division. That’s what this is all about, and it’s what we’ve been working towards.”
Here are the NL West standings:
I wrote in yesterday’s newsletter about how Profar was sort of working out in real time whether he thought winning the division and having a bye in the wild-card round would actually be a good thing.
He had it figured out by yesterday afternoon.
“We want it,” Profar said. “We are going there and bringing our ‘A’ game.”
Suarez varies the recipe
Robert Suarez worked a scoreless ninth inning yesterday in his first appearance since giving up a two-run homer on Friday, the third time in six games he allowed a game-tying or go-ahead homer in the ninth inning.
The different pitch mix employed by Suarez yesterday was significant. and how those pitches worked was the real key.
Suarez still went with his four-seam fastball more than any other offering, but among his 13 pitches were three sinkers, three changeups and a cutter. He had thrown three cutters all season. And he had been throwing his changeup less than 10 percent percent of the time over his previous five games. He had thrown his four-seam fastball between 63 and 95 percent of the time in his previous 12 games.
Suarez got the first out of the ninth on one pitch, a sinker. He started the next batter with a changeup before finishing a strikeout with a four-seam fastball. His cutter was hit for a single. He finished off a game-ending strikeout with two straight changeups.
As noted in Saturday’s newsletter, showing a little variety is what Shildt and pitching coach Ruben Niebla suggested must happen.
Here is a look at Suarez’s pitch usage heading into yesterday:
Rotation equation
The Padres chose to stay on turn with their starting rotation, which means Michael King will start tomorrow against the Dodgers and be the only pitcher available to start twice this week.
In deciding between King and Dylan Cease to start tomorrow, the team balanced the potential that Sunday’s game will matter with the desire to line up their rotation for a potential wild-card series that begins two days after that.
This leaves Cease as a potential Game 1 starter in a wild-card series.
Also, as we have discussed recently, the effectiveness of the entire rotation made multiple options attractive. Yu Darvish throwing 6⅓ scoreless innings yesterday lowered the rotation’s ERA over the past 18 games to 2.29, second in the majors since Sept. 1 to Mets’ starters 2.28 ERA.
Said Niebla of the rotation: “We’re in a pretty good spot.”
Back again
After the Padres fell behind 1-0 in the top of the third inning yesterday, Profar tied the game with a home run in the bottom of the third.
With the game tied 2-2 and a runner on third base in the eighth inning, Profar put the Padres up 3-2 with a sacrifice fly.
That was his team-leading 15th game-deciding RBI. And yesterday was the sixth victory this season in which Profar drove in at least half the Padres’ runs, tied with Manny Machado and Jackson Merrill for most on the team.
Profar, who also singled to finish 2-for-3, is batting .345 (19-for-55) with four doubles, three home runs and six walks over the past 15 games.
This follows a 22-game stretch from Aug. 11 to Sept. 4 when he batted .165/.299/.279 in 98 plate appearances.
The torrid finish would seem to further legitimize his breakout 2024, which has come in his 11th big-league season.
“Just the player that I’ve become, I’m very happy with that,” said Profar, whose .385 on-base percentage leads the NL. “Everything I always believed in, the player I can be. It wasn’t like I was slumping or feeling bad (during that 22-game skid). Pitchers were locking in on me, throwing me different. I got a lot of hit by pitches, a lot of hard-hit outs. But for me to keep doing the same over and over again and then the results come, it speaks a lot about myself. Back in the day, I’d have been switching, trying to get hits.”
Good day off
Arraez was available as a pinch-hitter in the eighth inning because he did not start yesterday in order to rest the left knee he banged up sliding into home on Monday.
“I needed a day today,” said Arraez, who started just three of the past five games. “And I feel way better today. So I hope I rest tomorrow and come back strong to stay.”
Shildt jokingly confirmed that Arraez will be back leading off tomorrow.
“Yeah, you see what he does to David at first,” Shildt said, referring to Arraez’s ritual of slapping first base coach David Macias on the chest after reaching first base on a single. “I think he’s capable of a lot more if I don’t put him in the lineup.”
Tidbits
- Tatis has two home runs and four doubles during a five-game extra-base hit streak. That is tied for the third-longest streak of that kind in his career. He it six homers and two doubles during a seven-game streak in 2020.
- Tatis is batting .340 (16-for-47) with six home runs and four doubles during an 11-game hitting streak.
- Arraez’s .373 batting average (41-for-110) with runners in scoring position is second in the major leagues behind the Royals’ Bobby Witt (.376).
- Profar had already set career highs in home runs (24), RBIs (85), walks (75) and times being hit by a pitch (17). Yesterday, he tied his career high with his 10th stolen base.
- Machado has struck out in eight consecutive games, which is tied for the fifth-longest streak of his career and is four games off his career high.
- Jeff Sanders wrote (here) about Darvish becoming the first Japanes-born pitcher and 90th pitcher in history to reach 2,000 strikeouts in the major leagues.
- Jeff also wrote (here) about infielder Nick Ahmed joining the Padres and Ha-Seong Kim transfering his rehab to Arizona.
- Four is the Padres’ gateway number. They are 74-13 when scoring at least four runs, the best such record in the major leagues.
- As noted in yesterday’s newsletter, Shildt became the 14th manager to ever win 90 games in the first three seasons of his career in which doing so was possible — and the first to do it with more than one team.
All right, that’s it for me.
I will post a story on our Padres page today about King, who it could be argued has been the team’s most valuable starting pitcher in his first season in the role.
No game today, so the next newsletter will be in your inbox on Wednesday.
Originally Published: