SAN DIEGO -- The Padres capped a brilliant 5-1 homestand with a walk-off victory and a sweep of the Brewers on Wednesday afternoon at Petco Park.
Luis Campusano single plated Sung-Mun Song in the bottom of the 11th and sent San Diego to a 4-3 victory in one of the most dramatic games of their season.
“Great baseball game,” said Padres manager Craig Stammen. “Exhausting. From my perspective, a little brain buster. But those are the games you live for.”
No matter how it ended, this would've been a fantastic homestand for the Padres. But it ended in extraordinary fashion -- and with San Diego moving a game ahead of the Phillies and Diamondbacks, who each lost, in the NL Wild Card race.
Here are some takeaways from Petco Park, ahead of a much-needed off-day on Thursday:
A gritty eighth-inning rally
With two outs and nobody on in the eighth inning, the Padres turned in a stretch of three straight excellent plate appearances to tie the game.
Fernando Tatis Jr., who was pinch-hitting after being given the day off, worked a four-pitch walk. Luis Rengifo followed with a brilliant nine-pitch at-bat, then earned a walk himself. That brought up Jake Cronenworth, which prompted Brewers manager Pat Murphy to go to left-hander Aaron Ashby.
Cronenworth worked a nine-pitch at-bat himself -- and on the ninth, he bounced a chopper to first. But he was hustling out of the box, and Ashby was a split second late to cover. Cronenworth was safe. Tatis was busting it from second base as well, and he scored on the play.
“Perfect guy to have on second there,” Cronenworth, who picked up the RBI, said with a wry smile.
“Just being aggressive,” Tatis said. “Obviously, that was going to be a close play at first. … I saw the play was going to unfold at first base, and I just went for it.”
Without hitting a ball out of the infield, the Padres had tied the game at 2 on an ultra-dramatic two-out rally.
The stakes are high … and you can tell
The Padres have perhaps the sport’s best bullpen. They’ve now wrapped up a stretch of 26 games in 27 days and are set to have off-days far more regularly in the coming weeks.
There will be opportunities for Stammen to manage aggressively.
Like he did on Wednesday.
New acquisition Robbie Ray grinded his way through four innings of two-run ball. He needed 84 pitches. With a relatively fresh ‘pen -- and an off-day looming on Thursday -- Stammen didn’t hesitate.
He went to Bradgley Rodriguez for the top of the fifth. Rodriguez, one of the Padres’ higher leverage arms, worked two excellent scoreless frames. Jeremiah Estrada followed with a clean seventh. Kyle Hart, newly promoted to high leverage himself, worked in and out of trouble in the eighth.
That’s the nature of the Padres’ deep ‘pen. They can use some of their best weapons in a game they’re losing. (Before turning it over to Mason Miller and Adrian Morejon once the game was tied, of course.)
Morejon, in particular, was outstanding. He kept the Brewers off the board in the 10th. In the 11th, he surrendered an unearned run (the automatic runner) but struck out the side and left the bases loaded.
“The way the bullpen pitched was pretty amazing,” Stammen said. “We’ve been talking about how good they’ve been all year. But we’ve been using them a lot. So it’s not like they’re the freshest guys in the world right now. But they’re digging deep and making a ton of great pitches.”
Campusano’s moment
The Padres could’ve won it in the ninth, but Jase Bowen came an inch away. Twice. First, he hit a grounder down the third-base line, ruled just foul. Then he smacked a liner to center that was caught by a diving Garrett Mitchell. Both would’ve plated the winning run.
In the 10th, after Morejon’s heroics, the Padres couldn’t plate the automatic runner. In the 11th, Jackson Merrill thought he might’ve won it, but was robbed by Luis Lara of extra bases. It plated the tying run on a sacrifice fly, however, bringing Campusano to the plate.
With two outs and two strikes, he swatted a single to the opposite field. Lara came up throwing -- a laser of a throw, but slightly high. Sung-Mun Song, who had swiped second base, scored on an expert slide, inside the line.
When Song slid in safely, Campusano was mobbed by his teammates between first and second base. He’d also thrown out a baserunner in the top of the 10th inning. Campusano, of course, has come a long way in the last year, after spending most of the 2025 season at Triple-A.
“His confidence has grown throughout the season,” Stammen said. “... Him being able to throw that guy out at third in extra innings was huge. And then the walk-off hit. He kind of showed his complete game today.”