SAN DIEGO -- The Padres didn’t have Mason Miller available. They didn’t have Adrian Morejon. They placed Jeremiah Estrada on the injured list before the game.
They made it work anyway.
San Diego salvaged the finale of its three-game series against Pittsburgh, shutting out the Pirates, 3-0, on Wednesday afternoon at Petco Park. It was a brilliant collective pitching effort -- with standout performances from Yuki Matsui and Bradgley Rodriguez at the back end.
Here are some takeaways from Petco Park, as the Padres maintained their one game edge over the Diamondbacks for the final Wild Card spot in the National League:
Piecing it together
After using Miller and Morejon on Tuesday night, Padres manager Craig Stammen acknowledged he probably wouldn’t have either available on Wednesday afternoon. He remained steadfast in his belief in his bullpen.
“Back at it tomorrow,” he said cheerily. “We’ve got a really good bullpen. I know those guys will pick those two up.”
Did they ever.
Stammen made the decision to lift Randy Vásquez after five scoreless innings and 68 pitches, essentially putting the game in the hands of his short-handed bullpen. Vásquez was entering his third trip through the order, and Stammen wanted a lefty for the top of the Pirates’ lineup.
It raised some eyebrows at the time. But Stammen got scoreless ball from Kyle Hart, Griffin Canning, Matsui and Rodriguez to nail down the win.
Matsui escaped a bases-loaded jam in the seventh by punching out Spencer Horwitz and Brandon Lowe at the top of the Pirates’ lineup. He sprinted off the mound and into the dugout.
“An unsung hero in our bullpen,” Stammen said.
Rodriguez was asked to cover the final two innings, earning up a six-out save when the Padres desperately needed it. In the process, he lowered his ERA to 1.95. Clearly, this San Diego bullpen is much more than its two biggest names.
“The strength of our bullpen is the length of it,” Stammen said. “Not just the top guys. But everybody in that ‘pen.”
A bounceback day for Merrill
Time to accept this truth: When it’s going bad for Jackson Merrill it’s going to look bad. He chases often, which can lead to some ugly looking at-bats -- and Merrill had his share of those in the first two losses this week against the Pirates.
“It’s baseball,” Merrill said. “There’s going to be games where it looks like I don’t know what I’m doing. There’s going to be days where it looks like I’m the best player on the planet. I just take it one day at a time and adjust.”
That’s just sort of who Merrill is. He’s going to swing and miss at pitches out of the zone. Recently, we established that he’s a better hitter when he’s not overcorrecting those chases.
You want to get the best version of Jackson Merrill? You need to accept what you got on Monday and Tuesday. Because then you’ll get what you got on Wednesday.
Merrill doubled and scored in the second. He tripled and knocked in a run in the fourth. He finished 2-for-3 with a tenacious 11-pitch walk in the eighth inning against Kirby Yates.
Merrill has been one of the most valuable players in the Majors in the second half -- high chase rate and all.
“I’m just doing my best every day to make the small adjustment I didn’t make the day before,” Merrill said.
Aggressive on the bases
It was just over a week ago that Padres third base coach Bob Henley was roundly criticized for his aggressive sends against the Mets at Citi Field. That night, three Padres baserunners were thrown out at the plate on outfield assists.
But here’s the thing: The throws that night were perfect. The tags were perfect, too. Sure, there was risk in those decisions. But, as Stammen noted that night, there’s also risk in being cautious and simply hoping for a hit from your next batter.
These Padres are never going to play that way.
On Wednesday, their aggressiveness paid off. Each of their first two runs scored via aggressive decisions on the basepaths. Merrill slid in just ahead of a tag in the second inning, following Luis Rengifo’s RBI single. Manny Machado did the same in the fourth on Merrill’s triple -- scoring with an expert slide after a long trip around the bases. Both of those runs came with two outs. Both of those runs scored with aggressive sends from Henley.
And, sure, Jake Cronenworth was nailed in the eighth inning on a perfect throw from Oneil Cruz. But the Padres recognize that’s simply part of the risk.
“You can’t stop sending us,” Merrill said. “Especially against a good pitching staff like the Pirates, you’ve got to take the runs when you can capitalize.”
On a day when offense was at a premium, this was a clinic in the importance of aggressive baserunning.