The Padres’ October has begun in earnest, in August.
It’s not do or die. But it is pretty close to now or never.
“Our playoffs have started,” first baseman Eric Hosmer said Tuesday afternoon. “Every game is a must-win. Every game is huge. It’s at that point in time where it’s now.”
In the first game of the rest of their in-season postseason, in another tense matchup against the Dodgers inside a brimming Petco Park on Tuesday night, the Padres lost 5-2.
Depending on whether the perspective is from a glass-half-full or half-empty outlook, the Padres' 10th loss in 12 games was either a wasted opportunity to move back into a tie for the National League’s second wild-card spot or the Cincinnati Reds’ loss in Milwaukee provided a reprieve for the Padres.
Either way, the Padres didn’t have enough to combat the Dodgers — after sweeping three games against them here in June and winning seven of the teams’ first 10 meetings this season.
This is a different time, seemingly further removed than two months from a time when the Padres scored a lot and had a healthy starting rotation.
While pitching coach Larry Rothschild bore the brunt of the blame for the starting rotation’s underachievement of late when he was fired Monday, it was the offense that continued to be an anchor.
After getting just three hits Tuesday, the Padres are batting .202 over their past dozen games.
From the start, the Padres’ strategic moves suggested Tuesday was a playoff game, as they used their back-end relievers early in a scheduled bullpen game.
They did not want to risk falling behind by multiple runs at the start the way they often have recently.
It worked, to an extent.
Pierce Johnson, who generally works the sixth or seventh inning, made his first career start.
After his 1-2-3 first inning, accomplished in 15 pitches, the Padres tried to get more. Johnson would not tie his season high of 1 1/3 innings, as Will Smith led off the second inning by sending a fastball 407 feet the other way. Johnson then walked Corey Seager before being replaced by Austin Adams.
Adams, who usually works anywhere from the sixth to the eighth, came on and got three fly ball outs.
Emilio Pagan worked the third and fourth innings, striking out four while throwing just 24 pitches. He was called on four innings earlier than usual and went two innings for the first time since 2019.
Nabil Crismatt, usually a long reliever, worked a perfect fifth inning before being lifted for a pinch-hitter. Daniel Camarena, called up earlier in the day, followed with a perfect sixth before running into trouble in the seventh.
Both teams had one hit through six innings. The Dodgers’ was Smith’s homer. The Padres’ was Eric Hosmer’s fifth-inning double.
The Dodgers added two runs on four hits in the seventh and two more runs on a double, a stolen base and a sacrifice fly, two walks, a wild pitch and another sacrifice fly in the eighth.
Jurickson Profar’s two-run homer in the eighth inning cut the Dodgers’ lead to 5-2. Wil Myers, who walked before Profar’s blast, hit a two-out single in the ninth for the Padres’ other hit. Profar followed by working an 11-pitch walk before Adam Frazier struck out to end it.
The Padres seemed for a minute to have lost Manny Machado in the seventh after he dived to stop a hard grounder by Chris Taylor that prevented a run and left the bases loaded against Camarena. Machado walked to the dugout down the steps that lead to the clubhouse but jogged back onto the field as new pitcher Daniel Hudson was finishing his warmups.
Hudson proceeded to yield a two-run single to AJ Pollock before retiring the next two batters on pop-ups. Reiss Knehr allowed the eighth-inning runs.
Machado and Pollock combined for another crucial moment in the game, as Pollock leaped to catch a ball above the wall and rob Machado of a two-run homer in the fourth inning.
That was also the moment that revealed perhaps as much as half of the sellout crowd of 41,676 was comprised of Dodgers fans, as a bunch of people wearing blue jumped from their seats with a collective roar.
This series was always going to be big, the start of a closing stretch in which the Padres played the top two teams in the National League West 19 times in their final 36 games.
They had not played the Dodgers since sweeping them here June 21-23. They haven’t played the Giants since May 9.
In the interim, those teams have moved on. The Padres are just trying to remain relevant.
Since leaving San Diego in June, the Dodgers had won 34 of their 51 games leading up to Tuesday, closing from 4½ to 2½ games behind the NL West-leading Giants.
The Padres are 23-27 since improving to 45-32 on June 23. A half-game deficit behind the Dodgers and a 4-game deficit to the Giants have become 11 1/2- and 14-game gaps. A six-game lead over the Reds on June 24 became a one-game deficit.
“We built ourselves a nice cushion as far as playoff position,” Hosmer said. “We were fighting for the division. But that’s far gone. That’s not the case anymore. Every game is a must-win now. We’re fighting for our lives.”
_____
