With the calendar set to turn to September, the San Diego Padres are fighting for their playoff lives.
Entering a tough weekend series against the Tampa Bay Rays, San Diego had a 16-8 record in August, including an impressive sweep of the Milwaukee Brewers. Their slumping offense had finally come alive in recent weeks, with Fernando Tatis Jr. breaking out of a power drought, Jackson Merrill turning around his year, and Ty France continuing to be a surprising offensive force.
Their typically aggressive front office improved the pitching staff by bolstering the starting rotation with trades for Casey Mize and Robbie Ray. Mason Miller looked like an unstoppable force on the mound, encountering easily movable objects in the opposing batters box.
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Despite the Arizona Diamondbacks hanging around, the final wild card spot in the National League looked like the Padres’ to lose. Fast forward to Sunday evening, and the Padres are suddenly on the outside looking in after a sweep in Tampa. That’s frustrating enough, but what’s worse for the team and their fans is how it happened. Particularly Sunday’s 5-4 loss.
Entering the bottom of the ninth inning, the Padres had the Rays right where they wanted them, a 3-1 lead with Miller on the mound.
Junior Caminero led off the inning with a 78mph single to center, before Miller rebounded to strike out Liam Hicks and get Chandler Simpson to line out. Then, with two outs, Miller got outfielder Jonny DeLuca to hit a fly ball to left field. Samad Taylor had a beat on it, tracked it down into the corner, caught the ball as he ran into the fence and just…dropped it. Game-ending out turns into game-tying homer.
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Even more infuriating for Padres fans? DeLuca’s fly ball had no business being a home run. With an exit velocity of just 90.7mph, the ball traveled 319 feet, with Taylor’s help. That’s a home run in literally one out of the 30 Major League Baseball stadiums, good for just an .010 expected batting average. Hits with those exact characteristics are outs 99% of the time, and the one percent turns into a game-tying home run.
It wasn’t the last mistake San Diego would make.
In the 11th inning, the Padres took a 4-3 lead on a Ty France fly ball, and reliever David Morgan got superstar Junior Caminero to strike out to start the bottom of the inning. Liam Hicks poked a bloop single to center, and San Diego walked Chandler Simpson to set up a double play after Hicks stole second.
Then DeLuca, again DeLuca, tapped a weakly hit grounder to shortstop Xander Bogaerts. Bogaerts had an easy out at home to get the second out and keep the game 4-3 and flubbed it, tying the score and putting the winning run at third with one out.
Jorge Mateo immediately laced a walk-off single to left for the sweep, ending a brutal game and weekend for San Diego.
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The loss dropped the Padres to 72-65, and if the season ended today, they’d miss the postseason after two straight appearances.
It’s hard to pin the outcome on Miller; he got DeLuca to hit what amounts to a routine fly ball to left to end the game, but the unique dimensions at Tropicana Field and a fluky misplay by Taylor led to the ball going over the fence. Bogaerts is typically sure-handed, but couldn’t come up with a play he makes 99% of the time. That’s what makes baseball so impossible to predict, and so exciting to watch. The margins between teams, games, and playoff appearances is often razor thin.
While the team’s fans will be lamenting a missed opportunity, for neutral baseball fans, the race for the final NL wild card spot is set to provide incredible drama. The Diamondbacks and Padres are separated by just half a game, they’re tied in the all-important loss column, and the two finish the regular season by playing a three-game series against each other in San Diego.
Even better, the season series between the two is tied at five apiece, meaning that final series will determine the tiebreaker. And thanks to the left-field fence in Tampa, it might be the most exciting three-games of the year.
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