Mason Miller allows first homer in more than a year as Padres fall to Pirates

Michael King continued to show he is ready to be effective in October.

The Padres’ offense did not.

And that set the stage for a stunner and a 1-0 loss to the Pirates when Mason Miller allowed his first home run in more than a calendar year.

A changeup left just a smidge high and on the wrong side of the plate was yanked on a line down the right-field line and over the wall by Oneil Cruz in the ninth inning for the only run scored at Petco Park on Tuesday.

“Location was the biggest issue there,” Miller said. “If the pitch is away, it’s a different story, but you throw it in that spot to a lefty, it’s nine times out of 10 gonna get hit pretty hard. So unfortunately today, it got up in the air and left the yard.”

The changeup is also Miller’s third-best pitch and one that he throws 2% of the time.

“Every pitch that I throw in the game, I’m convicted in throwing,” he said. “Looking back, I can be a good enough self-evaluator to say that that was a stupid pitch. But I was convicted in it and had a plan and didn’t execute it.”

It was the first home run he surrendered since Lourdes Gurriel Jr.’s blast on Aug. 5, 2025, in Miller’s second game with the Padres.

“He’s human,” Padres manager Craig Stammen said. “You know, it’s part of the gig when you’re pitching. Every once in a while, someone’s going to get you. … Every once in a while it’s going to happen. Unfortunately, tonight, it was one of those games where it was a tie ball game and cost us.”

It did so because the Padres continued to struggle to hit with men in scoring position, and those missed opportunities led to another big blown chance. When the Diamondbacks came back and walked off the Cubs, it meant the Padres’ lead over Arizona was trimmed to one game in the race for the final National League wild-card spot.

And the misery of missed chances began with what happened at the start.

King threw his 97th pitch and walked off the mound after the top of the seventh inning Tuesday night with the Padres and Pirates locked in a scoreless tie.

Tuesday was a continuation of a run that has seen King peaking as the season barrels toward the playoffs.

“Definitely like to be trending at this point,” King said. “Got to continue to work and make these adjustments and continue to have these good outings.”

King allowed five hits en route to his fourth consecutive quality start, the first time in his career he has put together such a streak. It was his seventh quality start in his past 10 games, a stretch in which he has a 2.72 ERA.

But another trend continued to work against him, as the Padres fell to 11-16 in his starts despite his 3.23 ERA ranking 10th in the NL and his leading the team with 14 quality starts.

King entered the night having received the worst run support in the league at 3.44 runs per start. The Padres have now scored two runs or fewer while he was in the game in 18 of his 27 starts. Tuesday was the sixth time they did not score while he was in the game.

For the second consecutive night, one of the Pirates’ fine starting pitchers — the kind the Padres will see should they hold onto their playoff spot — shut down the Padres for much of the game.

Paul Skenes did better than Braxton Ashcraft had in allowing one run over six innings Monday in a game the Pirates won 3-2 in 12 innings.

Skenes, the 2025 National League Cy Young Award winner, got through six innings in 86 pitches, having allowed three hits.

The only thing even somewhat surprising about the two right-handers going back and forth, trading dominant half-innings Tuesday, was that Skenes has not been the same Skenes much of this season.

He entered Tuesday with a 3.95 ERA. And it had gone worse for him lately.

The 2025 National League Cy Young Award winner had a 6.46 ERA over his previous five starts and a 5.06 ERA over his previous 17 starts.

The Padres faced Skenes for the first time ever on April 7 in Pittsburgh, when he held them hitless until Fernando Tatis Jr. singled with one out in the sixth inning.

Tatis also got the first hit against Skenes Tuesday when he led off the Padres’ half of the first inning by lining a double off the bottom of the wall in left-center field.

But a night after they went 1-for-13 with runners in scoring position, the Padres’ impotence in that situation persisted.

Tatis never got past second base, as Skenes struck out Jake Cronenworth, got a pop-up to the left side of the infield, and Ty France to pop up in foul territory on the right side.

That was the first half of six consecutive outs before Xander Bogaerts singled to start the third inning. Bogaerts got to second on Dustin Harris’ subsequent sacrifice bunt.

But no Padres batter would reach base against Skenes until Harris lined a single into right field to start the bottom of the sixth inning, a hit Harris intended to turn into a double until he saw that Jake Mangrum had run down the ball and fired a strong throw to second base.

Tatis followed with a lineout to second base that froze Harris, who then got to second on Cronenworth’s groundout and was left there when Machado popped out again.

That made the Padres 0-for-5 with runners in scoring position.

They would fail one more time — in the ninth inning when Ty France drew a two-out walk and pinch-runner Jase Bowen stole second two pitches before Jackson Merrill struck out to end the game.

“Really good pitching,” Stammen said. “They definitely upgraded their bullpen. Their bullpen is pretty nasty, and we faced the reigning NL Cy Young Award winner tonight, who had been struggling a little bit but was definitely back on his game today. So (it’s) a lot of tough pitching we faced the last two days. We haven’t been able to break through.”