Good morning,
That was electric.
And lucky.
And important.
It will be one to remember if the Padres are playing past Sept. 27.
“It’s too early to tell,” Manny Machado said when it was suggested to him that his game-tying, two-run single and the rest of what happened in the eighth inning might have saved the season. “A lot of baseball to be played. But yeah, it was a good at-bat, good win by the team. I think the whole inning, I think everyone had unselfish at-bats, great at-bats as a team, as a group, to lead to that victory tonight.”
All valid.
Also, the Nationals’ lost to the Padres as much as the Padres beat the Nationals.
The Nationals set a major league record last night by blowing their 38th save of the season.
Not that it matters all that much how it happened.
Every playoff team builds its record by trampling bad teams. And sometimes those games are gift-wrapped.
It was not pretty. Padres hitters were flummoxed from the start by members of what is arguably the major leagues’ worst bullpen.
At the start, the Padres did not get a baserunner for three innings against a pitcher who had never in his 12 career appearances gone two innings without allowing a hit. Then over the next two innings, they were held scoreless by a pitcher called up from Triple-A yesterday.
The Padres scored their first run in the seventh inning on a pair of singles, a wild pitch and a sacrifice fly by Jackson Merrill.
In the eighth, they scored four runs against two rookies called up from Triple-A within the past three weeks.
The Padres drew three walks to start the eighth, scored a run on Austin Hays’ sacrifice fly, another wild pitch that moved an additional runner into scoring position, Machado’s single on the eighth pitch of his at-bat, a single by Ty France and Luis Campusano’s bloop single to center field that left him holding just the handle of his bat as he ran to first base.
Some eighth inning magic. pic.twitter.com/GXRXwmIsLy
— San Diego Padres (@Padres) September 9, 2026
“You load the bases on walks, that’s just a recipe for the opposing team to be able to come back,” Padres manager Craig Stammen said. “And luckily we took advantage of it. It’s not that easy to take advantage of it, but we did. And we made some good at-bats. Manny had a great at-bat, Hays’ sac fly, Ty with the good at-bat and then we get the lucky bloop that kind of finishes the job.”
The Padres offense is not firing right now. It has been in another one of its valleys for weeks.
But you can’t take away what they did in the eighth to come from three runs down and win 5-4, no matter how much help they got.
The Padres have had 38 comeback victories, including 11 from three or more runs down, which is tied with the Astros for most in the major leagues. But last night was just their fifth victory (and first since May 13) in a game in which their opponent had a win probability of 94% or higher in the eighth inning or later.
Last night’s game went from the kind of loss a team ends up regretting when it misses the playoffs by a slim margin to the kind of victory that is pointed to as crucial when a team squeaks into the postseason.
You can read in Jeff Sanders’ game story (here) about how it all went down and how Machado acknowledged the Padres knew the Diamondbacks had won and that the Padres “needed to win this game bad.”
Morejon, valuable player
Mason Miller has lamented not being used more this season. He was pleased to take the ball for a second inning on Friday and then pitch twice more in the next three days.
But even he was startled by what happened yesterday.
Because Adrian Morejón pitched on all those days as well.
“He told me he was up today,” Miller said. “And I didn’t believe him.”
Morejón was up.
He pitched last night for a fourth time in five days, setting down the Nationals in seven pitches in the ninth inning to earn the save.
“It was one of his more dominant innings that he’s pitched all year,” Stammen said. “These guys have stepped up all year. They’ve taken the ball whenever I’ve asked, and they’ve done it whenever I haven’t asked, and that’s pretty amazing.”
Miller has gone two innings twice this season and gotten at least four outs six other times. He is two appearances and 3⅔ innings from tying his career highs.
Rookie Bradgley Rodriguez has gotten at least four outs 16 times and is second on the team with 61 appearances.
Rodriguez’s 1.92 ERA ranks 12th in the major leagues among qualifying relievers.
Miller’s numbers are ridiculous. His 1.17 ERA and 0.96 FIP are the best in the major leagues.
But the man who is widely considered the best relief pitcher in the major leagues did not hesitate at all when Morejón’s name was mentioned last night.
“He is the most valuable pitcher on our team, hands down,” Miller said. “I feel like I’ve said that before, but I think it’s pretty cut and dry at this point. Just his mentality, his availability, his efficiency too. … Constant availability, constant quality.”
I have written a few times here over the past month or so that it seems like he has been even more valuable in ‘26. And that is despite his numbers not being as good.
“He’s having an even better year this year,” Miller said. “Numbers for bullpen guys come and go.”
Morejón’s expected ERA and FIP are both lower than his actual ERA. And that number is greatly inflated by a run of five games in early April when he allowed eight earned runs in 4⅔ innings.
He has a 1.93 ERA over his past 53 games (60⅔ innings).
But the number that makes his other numbers most impressive is his career-high 79⅔ innings pitched over 69 games. He is the only high-leverage pitcher in the game with 10 more innings than appearances. (The Brewers’ Aaron Ashby comes close, having worked 80⅓ innings in 69 games, but he doesn’t take down the eighth inning and the top of the order nearly as often as Morejón.)
Morejón said last night there was no question he would be available.
“I’m ready for whatever I’m needed and whenever the team needs,” he said through interpreter Pedro Gutiérrez. “I knew I felt in a good spot, even though I pitched the last two games. It was pretty much a lot of mental preparation that went into this, so I knew that with the scenario that might come up, that I would pitch tonight. I prepared myself mentally. … It’s a very important win, and really that’s the main reason why I felt I needed a pitch today. It was just being able to pick up the win — however the situation (arose), just pick up the win.”
For the record, this is what Stammen said: “(Morejón) and Mason, you could argue they’re the MVPs of the team in the way that they’ve taken the ball and pitched.”
Manny moves up
Machado’s single in the seventh inning was his 1,136th base hit with the Padres, moving him into sole possession of second place on the franchise’s all-time list behind Tony Gwynn.
“That’s pretty awesome, man,” Machado said. “I mean, I think just looking back at my time here, and to look up there and, in such a short period of time, be up there with some of the greats that have ever played this game, I think it’s obviously an honor. It’s an honor to put on the uniform every single day, and to be up there and look up there and be next to Tony for the rest of my career, I think it’s pretty special.”
Machado, whose 1,109 games are fourth most in Padres history, is the Padres’ all-time home run leader (220). And that is probably the only one of the major categories in which he will finish as the franchise leader, as Gwynn made everything else a race for second by playing 20 seasons and being one of the best hitters in history.
Rebound start
Casey Mize (sort of) acknowledged he needed a start like last night.
“I guess some,” he said. “I don’t want to say that it was all hinging on this, you know. Because I just don’t live in that world. Every game is super important to me, no matter if I’m on a great run or not throwing the ball well. I kind of view them all in a certain lens of I need to go perform well.”
The Padres needed him to do what he did.
Both because their bullpen required a rest and so that they could be assured he is not damaged goods.
Mize entered the game having allowed 15 runs (10 earned) in 11⅔ innings over his past three starts, which it goes without saying is not what they paid for when they acquired him at the trade deadline.
He ended up being charged with three runs in 5⅔ innings last night. But he was in some ways better than those numbers and struck out seven batters, his most in seven starts with the Padres.
“It was certainly a lot better,” he said. “Felt like I was moving pretty well, had some better locations on my stuff.”
Mize last night was far more precise, as he kept his pitches low and on the edges quite a bit more than recently.
“I think the margins are so small at this level — of like getting the split below the zone or sticking the two-seamer on the white line versus it catching some plate or the slider being away but a little bit down instead of elevated or whatever it may be,” Mize said. “It’s pretty small.”
The first run Mize allowed came on a homer hit by Yohandy Morales on a sinker in and at least eight inches off the plate.
After allowing a double immediately following the homer, Mize retired 10 straight.
He yielded a one-out double and walked a batter with two outs in the sixth, and Stammen went to Randy Vásquez, who gave up a two-run double.
“I felt more like myself a little bit,” Mize said. “Obviously, wasn’t happy with three runs. But I feel like if I do what I did tonight over a longer period of time, it’s going to yield some better results.”
Strategy talk
Yes, Stammen was second-guessing himself for not allowing Mize to try to face right-handed hitter Brady House with two outs in the sixth inning.
As Mize was getting in trouble, Stammen had Vásquez and left-hander Yuki Matsui warming.
Stammen decided to not use Matsui to face left-handed-hitting CJ Abrams, who walked. That is when Stammen went to Vásquez, who surrendered the two-run double to House.
“If I had to do it all over again, I probably would have done it a little bit differently,” Stammen said. “I probably would have left him in and had Yuki ready, or had Yuki ready for Abrams instead of Randy for House. But, you know, (if) Randy gets a 6-3 and they throw him out at first. I’m like, ‘Yeah, that was a great decision.’ So we could have (gone) either way with that.”
Stammen also alluded to a blister on Mize’s finger that he did not want to risk aggravating. And he also thought it was important to acclimate Vásquez to coming out of the bullpen in such situations after he has spent most of the past three seasons in the rotation.
“I think having Randy in that situation, we’re going to need to use him in situations like that, and he’s got to get comfortable and get used to it,” Stammen said. “Eventually, he’s going to get a big out in a situation like that in the playoffs for us.”
That’s a lot
I missed this on Monday.
The Padres became the first team other than the Dodgers to pass 3 million in attendance this season.
It is the fourth consecutive season in which they have done so. By season’s end, only the Padres, Dodgers, Yankees and Phillies will have eclipsed 3 million each year since 2023.
Last night was the 60th crowd over 40,000 in 74 games at Petco Park this season.
In 2022, there were 26 crowds that big. The pandemic limited capacity for much of 2021 and no fans were allowed in ballparks in 2020.
Over the nine seasons from 2011 to 2019, the Padres drew 40,000-plus a total of 65 times.
With just seven home games remaining, they will fall short of setting a franchise attendance record for a fourth consecutive season.
Tidbits
The Padres have won four of the five games on this homestand with all of the victories coming by one run. Before this stretch, they lost their previous six one-run games. They are now 23-22 in one-run games.
Machado is batting .452 (14-for-31) with a .538 on-base percentage during a nine-game on-base streak.
David Morgan got the win last night after entering the game with two outs and a runner on third base in the eighth inning, throwing one pitch and getting a groundout to third. It was about time he started to have things go his way. Morgan has a 4.62 ERA in 24 appearances (25⅓ innings) this season, but his expected ERA is 3.42. Opposing hitters have a .408 batting average on balls in play against him, which is second-highest among relief pitchers who have thrown at least 20 innings.
Luis Rengifo has been at Petco Park this week, walking around with just a compression sleeve on his right leg. Rengifo, who tore his ACL and MCL on Aug. 29, is waiting for the swelling in his leg to go down. He plans to consult with orthopedic surgeon Dr. Neal ElAttrache in Los Angeles before deciding on the surgical route he wants to take.
The Padres were 0-for-4 with runners in scoring position before going 2-for-4 in the eighth inning. They have an MLB-worst .176 batting average with runners in scoring position over the past 14 games.
All right, that’s it for me. Early game today (1:10 p.m. PT).
Talk to you tomorrow.