Good morning,

The Padres like to talk after victories about it having been a team effort.

Last night was one of those where it really was.

“Everyone did their job,” Manny Machado said. “It took everyone to get this victory. People stepped up in big ways, and we got the job done as a group. It shows you what this team was capable of.”

There are often little plays that go overlooked in the regular season. But not in October when every pitch seems so consequential.

“A lot of little things done well adds up to some big things, and that’s what tonight’s game was,” Padres manager Craig Stammen said. “We were looking for any way, any how to get a ‘W.’ So anything was on the table. And everything. The guys bought into that, and they accomplished it.”

The Padres had to win. They did so.

They were three victories from becoming the 11th team ever to win a best-of-five series after being down two games to none. Now they are two victories away.

“We used a lot of energy today, and we’ve got to bring that same energy tomorrow also,” Stammen said. “It’s going to be another fight just like the first three games, and I don’t think I expect anything different. The resilience we showed today, the stick-to-it-iveness, the keep bouncing back, all the adjectives you can use for that, this team showed it all year. And they showed it especially again tonight. We’re going to have to do it again tomorrow.”

You can read about many of the things the Padres did well in my game story (here) from their 4-3 victory over the Brewers in Game 3 of the National League Division Series.

And you can read Jeff Sander’s story (here) about Michael King pitching the final two innings for the save in a game in which the Padres were without Mason Miller because his first child was being born and Adrian Morejón because his shoulder was sore.

King deserved every bit of the praise he got for coming back two days after his start in Game 2 to throw 40 pitches.

“That guy’s a psycho,” Padres bullpen coach Ben Fritz said. “In a beautiful way.”

There is no doubt that if the Padres win the next two games and advance to the NL Championship Series, King will almost certainly have pitched again in Game 5, and he will be remembered as an all-time postseason great for the Padres.

The Padres have been to the postseason all three years he has been with the club, and he has a 2.00 ERA in six playoff appearances. He and Kevin Brown are the only Padres pitchers to have ever thrown at least seven shutout innings in two postseason games.

And what he did in volunteering immediately after Game 2 to pitch again in Game 3 — and then getting himself ready to do so — is the stuff of legend.

“It’s unbelievable him being available for that,” Xander Bogaerts said.

But this game was also saved in the first inning and then again in the third when Jackson Merrill ran a long way to make two lunging catches.

The first of those came five pitches into the game when Brewers leadoff batter Jackson Chourio drove a ball to the left-field gap that Merrill ran 93 feet at a top speed of 30.2 feet per second to catch on the warning track with a grab before sliding on his knees.

Jackson Merrill robs Jackson Chourio with a superb grab! pic.twitter.com/527KXYTVDb

— MLB (@MLB) October 7, 2026

“It changes the game,” Brewers manager Pat Murphy said. “You lead off the game … gets hit in the gap. … That’s a long -ardage catch. And that kind of stands you up a bit. Instead of a man on second, nobody out, you’ve got a different situation.”

That does not capture just how big the play was.

Teams score better than 60% of the time they get a runner on second base with no outs. The Padres falling behind in an elimination game and Chourio, who ended Game 2 with a two-run single, starting Game 3 with a double could possibly have set the game on an entirely different course.

“Setting the tone,” Manny Machado said of the catch.

In the third inning, Merrill did almost the same thing by tracking down a Sal Frelick drive to the gap in right-center field. For that lunging catch, that also ended with him sliding on his knees, Merrill ran 73 feet and reached a top speed of 29.4 feet per second.

“Wow,” Brewers manager Pat Murphy said. “He made two great ones.”

That is not all Murphy said:

Jackson Merrill is balling out defensively tonight! Two gems in three innings! pic.twitter.com/XfthnU2Bis

— Talkin’ Baseball (@TalkinBaseball_) October 7, 2026

“Probably, in my opinion, the two biggest plays of the game, honestly, defensively — maybe outside the double play at the end by Xander,” Stammen said. “Those two fall, who knows what type of momentum they get from the beginning of the game and how that momentum is dictated from there.”

The game-ending double play by Bogaerts was plenty nice, and it was important coming when it did. But the research and development department and infield coaches Ryan Goins and Nick Punto get some credit for positioning Bogaerts where he was too. If he was not almost exactly where he was, he might not have gotten Christian Yelich’s 107 mph grounder, and he would not have had such a sure path to a double play.

Xander Bogaerts turns the double play, Michael King locks down the save, and the @Padres live to see Game 4! pic.twitter.com/vYXcWkxjJ3

— MLB (@MLB) October 7, 2026

And the ninth inning might not have mattered had Merrill not done what he did in the first and third innings.

“Those balls land,” Machado said, “it’s a different story.”

What now?

Walker Buehler, who allowed the Brewers a run on three hits over six innings in August, will start tonight.

When Buehler is finished, the Padres will do what they did in Game 3.

“We knew we were going to have to rely on our whole pitching staff this postseason,” Stammen said last night. “And this was the first day of that.”

Yes, things are about to change.

The Padres have used just eight of their 11 pitchers in this series, and that includes their three starting pitchers. But they are almost certainly going to have to trust some different guys tonight.

Yuki Matsui and Bradgley Rodriguez have pitched in all three NLDS games and worked 3⅓ innings apiece.

The Padres expect Miller back tonight. As I wrote before the game (here), he had been hoping his wife would give birth while the Padres were home so he could return to the team as quickly as possible.

Depending on who was asked and whether they were speaking for attribution, there were varying levels of optimism that Morejón will be ready by tonight.

“There’s definitely a chance,” Stammen said. “We’ll see. We’ve got to evaluate him tomorrow like we did today and put him in a safe space to be able to pitch. We don’t want to put him out there if he’s compromised.”

Morejón, who threw 31 pitches over two innings in Game 1 on Saturday, tested his arm by throwing off the mound yesterday afternoon.

“Still feeling a little stickiness in the shoulder,” Stammen said after the game. “We’re trying to work through it. We’re doing everything we can to get him ready. We’ll see his status tomorrow. He was definitely feeling a little bit better today but just didn’t feel like he could go.”

And the Brewers

We should always be careful when thinking we know more than the team in question, since they have all the information and we have relatively little.

But it would seem like overthinking for the Brewers to start anyone but Robert Gasser, who had a 1.67 ERA over 32⅓ innings in his final six games (five starts) of the regular season.

They have leaned heavily on their bullpen in the series as well. But Abner Uribe is the only pitcher to have thrown all three games. It is the playoffs, so Antonio Senzatela (31 pitches) and DL Hall (29 pitches) can’t be ruled out tonight.

“Yeah, we’ve got to read and react,” Murphy said. “This is playoff baseball, you know what I mean? We’ve just got to kind of regroup here and see where everybody’s at. … We’ve got some used-up guys, but we’ll have some available arms tomorrow for sure.”

Big X

First, Bogaerts prevented a go-ahead run. Then, he scored what ended up being the deciding run.

The double play Bogaerts turned to end the game was not his best play of the night.

That was his diving stop on the grass in the hole that kept William Contreras’ single from getting through and scoring Frelick. That would have given the Brewers a 3-0 lead in the fifth inning.

Xander Bogaerts saves a run from scoring#padres pic.twitter.com/Ai5IfSifKT

— Padres Central (@PadresCentral_) October 7, 2026

Instead, with the bases loaded, Yuki Matsui relieved Jason Adam and ended the inning on a fielder’s choice grounder.

“I firmly believe the diving play probably was the momentum shift during the game,” Bogaerts said. “I mean, if that ball goes by, we’re losing by a run now, and they still can hit, dugout going crazy for them. Our dugout is not going crazy, you know. We’re going silent, so the crowd gets out of the game right there. And now we got to come back from behind. And they probably have a different strategy with the bullpen. As soon as the ball was hit, I didn’t even think I had a chance. And the more I kept going, I just dove, and it went in the glove. I was pretty impressed that it hit the glove.”

Bogaerts made another astute play in the same area while running the bases in the sixth inning.

After reaching on a two-out single, Bogaerts went to second on a wild pitch. And when pinch-hitter Miguel Andujar bounced a broken-bat grounder to the left side, Bogaerts slowed and then leaped over the ball on his way to third base.

Brewers Shortstop Cooper Pratt fielded the ball cleanly but then short-hopped his throw to first baseman Jake Bauers. The ball did not get far from Bauers, but it was far enough and Boagerts revved up quickly enough after slowing around third base.

He was halfway home by the time Bauers picked up the ball, and he slid across the plate without a tag attempt.

“Had a good view on the ball, and as I tried to avoid the ball, like out of the corner of my eye, I saw a bat coming, and I tried to move from that,” Bogaerts said. “And quickly I had to focus back to — the ball goes by. … The Brewers, they always fight to come back. They score runs late, and any extra run would have been huge. I didn’t expect the shortstop to throw it bad, but if he did, I mean I was pretty much ready to go, because I know how much one more run is. And the next inning, they end up scoring one right away. I mean, they just keep fighting.”

Xander Bogaerts comes around to score on a wacky play! pic.twitter.com/AiU8yOw8VO

— MLB (@MLB) October 7, 2026

Getting in a zone?

Jake Cronenworth had one of the biggest hits in Padres postseason history — the two-run single in the rain during the seventh inning that decided Game 4 of the 2022 NL Division Series against the Dodgers.

Arguably, Steve Garvey’s walk-off home run in Game 4 of the 1984 NLCS was the only more monumental playoff hit by a Padres player.

But Cronenworth had not done a whole lot in the postseason since then and had not done much in these playoffs. He entered last night 1-for-27 in his previous eight playoff games, 1-for-13 this postseason and 0-for-7 in this series.

But he laid down a sacrifice bunt that helped the Padres to the game’s first run in the third inning. And after the Brewers had tied the game 2-2 in the fourth, he led off the fifth inning with a tie-breaking home run off left-hander JoJo Romero.

“Jake has a propensity to have some big hits in the playoffs,” Stammen said. “Tonight was a really big one also, big home run, left on left. You’re not expecting that from him in that spot, but he got a good plan from the hitting coach, stuck with it, and was able to put one into the Crone Zone. One swing like that can unlock somebody, getting them going, getting them hot. Jake’s a streaky hitter. Hopefully he goes on a hot streak here.”

Cronenworth also singled in the seventh inning to finish with two of the Padres’ six hits.

“I feel like I’ve been having good at-bats,” he said. “It happens when it happens. It doesn’t happen when it doesn’t. It’s hard to get a hit in this game, especially with the arms that we’re facing.”

Keep Their Heads Ringin’ pic.twitter.com/La85pegAE9

— San Diego Padres (@Padres) October 7, 2026

Better?

Fernando Tatis Jr. drove in his first run since his sensational Game 1 in the NL Wild Card Series. It was on a groundout that got Samad Taylor home from third base.

Tatis finished last night 0-for-4. He is 1-for-14 in the series and 1-for-18 in four games since his spectacular showing in that wild-card opener.

One thing was different last night. Tatis did not swing at any of the seven pitches he saw outside the strike zone. He had chased 10 of the 21 (48%) pitches he saw outside the zone in the first two games.

DH switch

Gavin Sheets woke up unable to turn his head and was experiencing what he called “zingers” throughout the day.

He was put in the original starting lineup at designated hitter with the hope he could work through the stiffness in time for the game.

But a little more than two hours before first pitch, with Sheets having not responded enough after hours of treatment, the Padres announced that Taylor would take his place.

That also moved Bogaerts up a spot to sixth, where Sheets was initially, and Dustin Harris up a spot to seventh. Taylor hit eighth.

Leading off the third inning, Taylor lined a single into center field and promptly stole second base. He then went to third on Cronenworth’s sacrifice and scored on Tatis’ chopper to shortstop.

“This is probably the biggest game of my career, being a win or go home,” Taylor said. “So I just tried to do whatever I can to calm the nerves and get back to present. … My only goal was to to help the team win and do whatever I can to put a team in a winning position.”

Sheets continued getting worked on by the athletic training staff during the game and was available by the eighth inning.

“It sucks; in the starting lineup and you can’t go,” Sheets said. “But Samad picked me up tonight in my spot, which was awesome. … I expect to be full go (today).”

Bodes well?

The Brewers are 0-10 on the road in the postseason since 2019 and have lost 12 straight postseason road games dating back to 2018.

Nine of the 12 losses have come to teams that went on to the World Series. The Brewers have been eliminated by the eventual NL pennant winner in six of their past seven postseason appearances and by the World Series winner in four of those (2019, ‘20, ‘21 and ‘25).

Tidbits

One of Merrill’s closest friends is Kai Murphy, son of the Brewers manager and an outfielder in the Padres organization. Merrill laughed after the game when asked if he had heard about Pat Murphy’s commentary on his play in the third inning. Said Merrill: “I might text him about it. That was kind of funny.”
Bogaerts is 6-for-17 this postseason and is batting .324 (11-for–34) with a .395 on-base percentage during a 10-game postseason on-base streak that dates back to 2024.
 Machado has reached base safely in eight consecutive postseason games going back to last year. He is batting .269 (7-for-26) with a .424 OBP during the streak.
King won’t count it as reaching his oft-stated goal, but after last night’s effort he needs just one more inning to reach 200 for the year. He worked 185 innings in his 32 starts in the regular season before opening the postseason by shutting out the Cubs for seven innings in the NL Wild Card Series and then allowing the Brewers one run in five innings in Game 2 of the NLDS.
Taylor’s single came on a 1-2 count. He hit .220 (20-for-91) with two strikes during the regular season. That is 51 points higher than the MLB average.
Just one Division Series ever has had every game decided by one run. That was in 2010 when the Giants beat the Braves in four games while outscoring them 11-9. After the three one-run games in this series, the Brewers have scored 10 runs to the Padres’ nine.

All right, that’s it for me.

Talk to you tomorrow.