A smiling Fernando Tatis Jr. asked reporters why they wanted to talk to him Wednesday, the Padres having just won a 4-3 thriller in 11 innings that swept the Major League Baseball-leading Brewers.

Tatis noted that he’d spent most of the game on the bench, catching up on his rest, a scarce commodity these days for the whole team.

Call him Fernando the Super Sub on this day — and because of him, the Padres were able to outlast the Brewers and vault two teams to land on the second spot in the wild-card race.

Tatis triggered a sequence that tied the game in the eighth inning. Brewers manager Pat Murphy singled out Tatis scoring from second base on a grounder to first base as the most pivotal episode of a game stuffed with crucial details.

“It’s always fun to be a part of a win like that,” Tatis said. “So glad to contribute.”

-Jake Cronenworth wins the race to 1B
-Fernando Tatis Jr. scores from 2B

The @Padres tie the game in the 8th! pic.twitter.com/11H7li4lAg

— MLB (@MLB) August 12, 2026

Tatis called to mind Rickey Henderson by using his power threat, speed and savvy to tie the game after manager Craig Stammen inserted him with two outs and the bases empty to bat for No. 9 hitter Freddy Fermin.

The Brewers huddled around reliever Chad Patrick to prepare for Tatis.

They surely noted that Tatis posed a much greater home run threat than Luis Renfigo on deck and Jake Cronenworth in the hole.

So it seemed Patrick might pitch around Tatis, whose home run in the prior game was his seventh since the All-Star break.

Tatis, reading the moment well in just his third pinch-hitting appearance this year, earned a four-pitch walk.

It was a crucial breakthrough.

He denied the Brewers an out they were desperate for their middle reliever to get after he’d just coaxed a double-play grounder out of Xander Bogaerts.

Turning up the heat further, Tatis stole second base.

This wasn’t one of the many stat-stuffing stolen bases that have proliferated in this era.

Tatis dealt with Patrick throwing over twice, and catcher Gary Sánchez snapping off a pickoff throw.

Rengifo went on to win his own duel, earning a tough walk.

And Cronenworth, fouling off pitches against lefty Aaron Ashby, did well to stave off a strikeout before hitting a soft bounder to first baseman Jake Bauers.

As Cronenworth beat Ashby to first base by a few inches, beating Bauer’s underhanded toss and keeping the inning alive, Tatis alertly scored the tying run.

This was a “Fernando Run,” from the same genre as the “Rickey Runs” that the late Henderson authored throughout his Hall of Fame career as a power-and-speed igniter.

“Just being aggressive,” Tatis said of his sprint to home.

“Obviously, that was going to be a close play at first. The first baseman is straight looking at me, and just straight throwing home, but I saw the play was going to unfold at first base, and I just went for it.”

Murphy said Ashby was a tad late getting to the bag, a problem for him this year.

The pitcher, a nephew of former Padres pitcher Andy Ashby, said he could’ve reached first base faster than he did, but also noted that his delivery had taken him toward third base.

Bauers said that he probably should have thrown home rather than to Ashby.

Bauers said he was mindful that Tatis was capable of scoring from second base on a ground ball to an infielder. He realized once he flipped the ball toward Ashby that throwing home would have been a better choice.

“It’s baseball,” Bauers said. “Stuff happens.”

Tatis wasn’t the only B-squad standout for the Padres.

Luis Campusano, who entered as the catcher in the ninth inning, threw out a base stealer at third base and drove home the winning run with a two-out single.

Pinch-runner Sung-Mun Song scored that winner with a deft headfirst slide, denying Sanchez’s tag attempt after a good (but high) throw from rookie right fielder Luis Lara one play after Lara denied Jackson Merrill’s a game-winning extra-base hit.

Song stole second base after Stammen, capping his own sharp performance across the nearly four-hour game, had him run for Ty France.

So it goes for the Padres, who went 5-1 on the homestand by overcoming a pair of division leaders in the Astros and Brewers.

The Padres also beat fatigue, closing out a stretch of 26 games in 27 days with a win the Brewers badly wanted in their attempts to hold off the Cubs.

Murphy, noting Stammen’s killer bullpen and other Padres strengths, called San Diego the “hottest team in baseball,” saying the Padres could cause ripples in October if they can earn a fourth wild card in five years.

“We have come together as a ballclub, as a team, and that’s what is needed,” Tatis said. “A sweep against a team like this, it keeps boosting our confidence all the way up. So we better keep it that way.”