Good morning from Los Angeles,

There was some thought in a champagne-soaked clubhouse that the Padres got a helping hand at the conclusion of last night’s playoff-clinching victory.

You can read in my game story (here) about how Peter Seidler’s presence was felt, especially as the Padres recalled the game-ending triple play.

It was impossible last night not to think of Seidler, whose initials inside a heart are on the teams’ uniforms and in the dugout at home and on the road and affixed to various places around Petco Park.

And, man, did he love beating the Dodgers. He did.

This would have ranked among his favorite moments — to have seen his team beat “the dragon up the freeway” in the ballpark his grandfather commissioned.

“He would enjoy it the most,” Fernando Tatis Jr. said amid the postgame celebration. “We definitely miss him. This is what he built.”

As for whether he also orchestrated that triple play …

What most certainly happened is that one of the two players Seidler loved above all the other players he loved was on the field in the right place at the right time and made a play that very few players would.

“That’s Manny Machado,” A.J. Preller said. “Only Manny.”

Maybe. Probably.

“There’s not many people who could make that play — Manny Machado and a small handful of people who can do it,” Mike Shildt said. “… Very few have the total package to make that play. He’s special.”

Or as Tatis, Seidler’s other favored son, put it: “Manny being Manny.”

Here is what happened:

With runners on first and second, Miguel Rojas squared to bunt on the first pitch he saw from Robert Suarez before lifting his bat and taking a strike.

As they had been on the previous pitch, Machado and third baseman Donovan Solano played in, on the edge of the grass, for the next pitch. But the Dodgers would later explain that the bunt sign was off after one pitch. (Both Rojas and manager Dave Roberts said that was because of how the Padres defense had shifted, reasoning that seemed peculiar since the only Padres infielder to move at all was second baseman Jake Cronenworth, and then only a little.)

So on a fastball on the inner third, Rojas pulled a one-hop grounder at 97.3 mph directly to Machado.

“That was the perfect play,” Machado said. “I was going up there for the bunt. … He hit a ground ball right at me. Instantly, I thought, ‘Let’s try to turn this and get us out.’”

Machado made a backhanded grab, took two quick steps to touch the bag with his right foot and then turned and threw an 86 mph chest-high strike to Cronenworth, who quickly threw to Solano to just beat Rojas.

GAME-ENDING TRIPLE PLAY TO CLINCH POSTSEASON BERTH pic.twitter.com/w2VmNQKWHw

— MLB (@MLB) September 25, 2024

“Manny, of all people, he’s the smartest guy out there,” Michael King said. “Nobody I’d want to the ball hit to besides Manny.”

Said Joe Musgrove: “Another thing we check off the bingo card. We found a way to win in every fashion this year, and that’s probably the last one we got there.”

It turns out, according to OptaStats, the Padres are the only team in MLB history to have had a triple play, a no-hitter, back-to-back-to-back home runs and a comeback win after being down eight or more runs in the same season.

As obscurely specific as that cluster of feats might be, it must be added to the pile of attributes of a team that has found a way to get the job done time and again when it seemed so unlikely.

Several Padres seized on the idea that the play picked up Suarez, the workhorse closer who has struggled lately and allowed a run on three singles to start the ninth inning last night.

“That was huge for the team and for Suarez,” Jurickson Profar said. “He’s been doing a really good job for us this year. Not these past couple weeks, but that was huge for Manny to do that for him.”

Machado said the infielders told Suarez during a mound visit following Kiké Hernández’s broken-bat RBI single that they had his back and would help him get out of the inning.

“That’s what it’s all about,” Machado said afterward. “We’re going to pick up everyone.”

Hang on

The Padres partied pretty hard last night.

“These are moments that need to be celebrated,” Joe Musgrove said .

But they also seemed to be doing so with some temperance, as many players hardly drank or did not drink at all.

“There are guys in here that may not have a chance to ever celebrate again,’ Musgrove said, echoing his sentiment from my pregame notebook (here). “This is important. You work the entirety of seven, eight months to get here, you deserve to celebrate it. It’s a competitive enough group to put it behind us and some back tomorrow and be ready.”

We’ll see. It’s a big ask to come back strong after a night like that.

But they do control their destiny.

The Padres moved within two games of the Dodgers in the National League West.

The Padres win the head-to-head tiebreaker in the event the two teams finish with identical records. So the Padres can win the division by winning out. They also could go 4-1 and win the division if the Dodgers lost at least two of three to the Rockies this weekend in Denver.

Last night’s victory also left the Padres four games up on the Mets and 4½ up on the Diamondbacks, who both lost.

A victory tonight along with losses by Arizona and New York would assure the Padres will finish no worse than in the top wild-card spot.

Big game Jake

It wasn’t Cronenworth’s biggest hit against the Dodgers. (That was this one in the 2022 NL Division Series.)

But a two-run homer with two outs in the top of the second inning that turned a 1-0 deficit into a 2-1 lead last night was pretty high on the list for a guy who does come through in a substantial number of crucial situations.

Cronenworth’s home run, which gave the Padres a lead they never relinquished, was his 14th game-winning RBI. That is most on the team and tied for eight most in the major leagues.

“We’re at that time of the year where it’s down at the wire,” said Cronenworth, who also doubled in the Padres’ final run. “You’ve got that feeling, it feels like playoff baseball. It’s my favorite time of the year.”

King-sized grind

King’s 13th win was really good and not all that great.

“After the second inning, I knew I didn’t have my best stuff,” said King, who was 54 pitches at that point. “Ruben knew it too. I told him I’d be more efficient. He said, ‘No, no. This is not a game to be efficient. We got the full bullpen behind you. Keep putting up zeroes.’ It’s another learning thing I got from Ruben. I just went out there and tried to grind and was able to pass it off to our dominant bullpen.”

After surrendering an unearned run in the first inning, King made it through four more innings without allowing any more damage. For his last two outs, to end the fifth inning, he got Ohtani and Betts on fly balls to the outfield.

“Those are the more impressive outings to me than the seven scoreless innings,” Musgrove said. “It’s not easy to go out there and not have your best stuff and find a way. It’s not about going out there hoping you have your best stuff. It’s about going out there on a given night and making the most of what you have. That’s what he did. He’s done it all year.”

I wrote Monday (here) about King’s first full season as a starter.

Last night, in his 30th start, he reached 173⅔ innings on the year and dropped his ERA to 2.95, fourth best in the NL. He also upped his strikeout total to 201, fifth most in the NL.

Big 5

The Padres are carrying nine relievers but have essentially been running a five-man bullpen for the past 2½ weeks.

Yuki Matsui has not pitched in a game since Sept. 7. Bryan Hoeing has pitched twice since then, Wandy Peralta just once. Alek Jacob’s last appearance was Sept. 8.

The five relievers who worked last night are the ones who have gotten virtually all the work.

Jason Adam and Tanner Scott have both appeared in nine of the past 13 games. Jeremiah Estrada, Adrián Morejón and Robert Suarez have all appeared in seven games in that span.

And it’s not all that surprising, given the circumstances.

“When you’re in close games and you’re winning a lot of games,” pitching coach Ruben Niebla said, “you’re going to see the best relievers come out of there.”

The Padres are chasing playoff positioning, and most of their recent games have been close near the end. Their starting pitchers are consistently going deep. And scheduled days off have meant fewer opportunities to pitch and provided more rest for the team’s most-trusted relievers.

The Padres have played just 13 games in the past 17 days.

In their 10 games since Sept. 12, the team’s starting pitchers have gone at least six innings seven times.

And 10 of the past 13 games have been within three runs at some point in the final three innings, including every one of the past eight.

Additionally, the willingness of the pitchers in the back end to work so much has made it even easier to stick with them.

“The beauty of these guys is not only are they good, they’re also all willing to pitch,” Niebla said. “They all feel good. They all have preparation routines that put them in a position to pitch. And their willingness to pitch is way beyond anything I’ve ever seen.”

Quick work

Shohei Ohtani had doubled, walked and made an out on a diving catch by Profar last night (and had 15 hits in his previous 20 at-bats) when he came to the plate against the left-handed Scott in the seventh inning.

Scott struck him out on three pitches.

“He’s a great hitter,” Scott said. “You see what he’s doing. He’s a tough out. I’m glad I got him.”

4-for-4

Shildt is in his fourth full season as a manager and is headed to the playoffs for the fourth time.

“It means I’ve had really good teams,” Shildt said. “Let’s not kid ourselves. It’s all on the field. When you have a talented roster and guys that like to compete and bring it every day, that gives you your best chance to go play in the playoffs, and Ive been blessed to have that.”

Tidbits

• Cronenworth now has 81 RBIs, placing him fourth on the team behind Profar (85), Merrill (89) and  Machado (104). The only other time a Padres team has had this many players with at least 80 RBIs was 1997 (Ken Caminiti, Steven Finley, Tony Gwynn and Wally Joyner).
• Merrill was 1-for-4 last night and is now 15-for-39 (.385) against the Dodgers this season. That is the second-highest average a Padres rookie has ever had against the Dodgers behind Johnny Grubb, who batted .400 (10-for-25) against them in 1974.
• The Padres’ next victory will be their 92nd of the season, tying them with the 1984 team for second-most in franchise history. The best they can do is finish two wins shy of the franchise record of 98 wins set by the 1998 club.
• Also in my pregame notebook was an update on Ha-Seong Kim, who could be activated by the weekend. That story discussed the options the Padres are considering for where he plays when/if he does return. It has to have become increasingly tempting to put him back at shortstop and move Xander Bogaerts back to second after Bogaerts made his third error in his past five games last night.
• The second of Bogaerts’ two singles last night came on a grounder down the line that was futilely fielded by third baseman Max Muncy. It was Bogaerts’ 17th infield hit, tying him with Kim for the team lead.
• Machado extended his strikeout streak to nine games, tied for the third-longest of his career.
• Just a magnificent call of the game’s final play by Jesse Agler.

All right, that’s it for me.

Talk to you tomorrow.

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