The Phillies lost. The Cubs lost twice.<\/p>\n
All the Padres regular position players were eager to play Friday, a night after clinching a playoff spot and celebrating heartily. There was a big goal well within reach.<\/p>\n
A video montage from the previous evening\u2019s postgame festivities had just played on the video boards at Petco Park. The Padres had taken the field. The music had stopped, but the noise had continued. The yellow towels given away to fans were being waved en masse.<\/p>\n
Vibes were good.<\/p>\n
Then Lars Nootbaar rocketed Casey Mize\u2019s first pitch 403 feet to right field to put the Diamondbacks ahead.<\/p>\n
They would score twice more in the first inning and again in the second, twice in the third and once in the fourth, as Mize allowed home runs to Jordan Lawlar and Nolan Arenado as well.<\/p>\n
The sizzling and desperate Diamondbacks went on to an 11-4 victory \u2014 their sixth in a row \u2014 and moved to within a game of playoff position with two games remaining in the regular season.<\/p>\n
Mize left after four innings with his team trailing 7-2. The Padres scored all their runs against Brandon Pfaadt, who completed 7\u2154 innings.<\/p>\n
\u201cTough loss,\u201d Padres manager Craig Stammen said. \u201cFaced a good pitcher tonight, and he out-pitched our starting pitcher. Kind of the story of the game.\u201d<\/p>\n
The result kept the Padres from wrapping up the No. 4 seed in the National League playoff field.<\/p>\n
That fourth seed, which comes with being the home team in the best-of-three wild-card series that begins Tuesday, can still be earned with one more victory by the Padres or a loss by the Cubs and Phillies.<\/p>\n
All Friday really was \u2014 besides the missed chance to secure the home series \u2014 was confirmation that Mize will not be on the Padres\u2019 roster for the first round of the postseason.<\/p>\n
In that he has been battling a groin issue much of the season and wears a brace on his right ankle after spraining it on Aug. 22, it Mize could even be placed on the injured list. In fact, his postgame comments made it seem inevitable.<\/p>\n
Mize referred after Friday\u2019s game to the ankle as his primary issue, in that it is not allowing him to move like he needs to in his delivery. He said it was \u201ctime to have an honest conversation\u201d about his ability to pitch going forward.<\/p>\n
\u201cWe have so much good things going on this team, and for me to be going the opposite direction is tough,\u201d Mize said. \u201cI\u2019m certainly not myself. I feel like just grinding through and trying to do what I can, but obviously it\u2019s nowhere close to good enough.\u201d<\/p>\n
Putting Mize on the IL would make room for another pitcher the Padres could activate to work in Sunday\u2019s season finale.<\/p>\n
\u201cA lot of guys will pitch on Sunday, most likely,\u201d Stammen said.<\/p>\n
Mize, a 29-year-old right-hander, arrived at the trade deadline with a 2.70 ERA in 16 starts and proceeded to post a 7.46 ERA in 10 starts with the Padres. He has allowed 13 home runs in those 10 games, which is eight more homers than he allowed in his starts for the Tigers this season.<\/p>\n
Even before Friday, it seemed unfathomable Mize could be trusted in the postseason.<\/p>\n
The Padres\u2019 rotation for their first-round series has been all but set with Michael King starting Game 1 and Nick Pivetta and Walker Buehler to follow. Buehler would then be available for Game 1 of the NL Division Series if the Padres advance by winning their first two games. If not, the expectation is that Robbie Ray would start the opener of the NLDS.<\/p>\n
The odds still greatly favor the Padres hosting their NL Wild Card Series, as they have two more chances to win and the reeling Cubs and Phillies have a combined three more chances to lose.<\/p>\n
While the Padres have won 15 of their 18 games since Sept. 6, the Cubs and Phillies have both gone 7-11 in that span.<\/p>\n
That allowed the Padres to rise from six games behind the Phillies and 6\u00bd games behind the Cubs to lead the Phillies two games and the Cubs by 1\u00bd games.<\/p>\n
The biggest benefit of wrapping up the No.4 seed Friday would have been the ability to rest some position players and pitchers the rest of the weekend, though Stammen did get many of his regular time off in the latter innings Friday.<\/p>\n
Now they must work a dual track of making sure players are in their best physical and mental space at the end of a long season and their desire for homefield advantage.<\/p>\n
\u201cI think balance is the right word,\u201d Stammen said before Friday\u2019s game. \u201cYou try to give them the rest that they deserve but also put a lineup out there that\u2019s going to help us win games. Win \u2026 and we\u2019re going to be playing here at home. And I think that\u2019s a big, big opportunity for us.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"The Phillies lost. The Cubs lost twice. All the Padres regular position players were eager to play Friday,…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":476150,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[28],"tags":[181,1334,74,76,75,2611,127],"class_list":["post-476149","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-san-diego","tag-latest-headlines","tag-mlb","tag-san-diego","tag-san-diego-headlines","tag-san-diego-news","tag-san-diego-padres","tag-sports"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/476149","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=476149"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/476149\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/476150"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=476149"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=476149"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=476149"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}