ST. PETERSBURG -- The Padres had won the game Sunday afternoon. A split-second later -- after what looked like a game-ending catch became a game-tying home run -- they had not won the game. And their misery had just begun.
From the depths of that inexplicable despair to a plucky extra-inning recovery to getting whacked over the head once again, the Padres experienced every imaginable emotion during what became a 5-4 defeat in 11 innings and a three-game sweep at the hands of the charmed-life Rays.
“In baseball, you see a lot of [crazy] things,’’ said Padres manager Craig Stammen, who watched from his office after being ejected in the seventh inning. “What I saw on TV was what everybody else saw.’’
The Padres, who were 59-0 this season when leading after eight innings, were about to nail down a 3-1 victory. With a runner aboard and two outs, the dominating Mason Miller delivered a one-strike slider to Jonny DeLuca, who lifted a sky-high shot near the left-field corner.
Left fielder Samad Taylor, after a long run, caught it securely in his glove -- game over? -- but then he slammed into the Trop’s short fence near the left-field foul pole. During the instantaneous wall collision, the ball trickled out of Taylor’s glove. It dropped over the fence for what was ruled an improbable Statcast-projected 319-foot two-run homer.
Incredibly, the game was tied.
"I got a good break on the ball, got to the wall fine, caught it, half-step, hit the wall, the ball goes over the fence, and a home run it is,’’ said Taylor, whose day began with a 5 a.m. flight from Oklahoma City, where he completed a rehabilitation assignment with Triple-A El Paso.
“It cost us the game, I think. It was a mistake that happened, an error that happened, an error that cost us the game. I'm hard on myself. I don't know if it goes down as an error in the books, but in my mind, it's an error. It hit my glove and should be caught. We should be having a different conversation. Should be having a conversation about a win, and instead we're having a conversation about a mistake that I made. So, just got to flush it, flip the page and go back out tomorrow.’’
The Padres actually retook the lead, 4-3, in the top of the 11th on a sacrifice fly by Ty France. Right-hander David Morgan, the Padres’ sixth pitcher, tried to preserve it. But the Rays loaded the bases and scored the tying run when hard-charging shortstop Xander Bogaerts booted DeLuca’s sharp grounder. The Rays promptly won it when Jorge Mateo’s liner sailed over Taylor’s head in left.
But the 11th inning was window dressing.
The game’s flashpoint was clear: The ninth-inning catch/no-catch by Taylor, which became the game-ender/sudden home run by DeLuca.
“I don’t think I’ve ever seen it before,’’ Rays starter Drew Rasmussen said. “It’s one of those plays where we’ll look back at the end of the year and probably just be grateful for the moment.’’
“We were pretty fortunate,’’ Rays manager Kevin Cash said.
“I thought he had caught it. … [I’m] just very blessed that it went over,’’ DeLuca said.
And the Padres, seemingly, were cursed. In a series that included a no-doubt homer by Bogaerts that turned into an out because of a Trop catwalk and a horrendous knee injury to second baseman Luis Rengifo, Sunday’s ninth inning took it to a new level of ridiculousness.
“Adversity is a good thing because it makes you tougher, and it makes you stronger and it makes you bounce back,’’ Stammen said. “If we can't handle adversity at this point in the season, how do we think we’re going to be able to be the champions at the end of the season? This is experience for … when it could go bad on a bigger stage. How we handle it coming into Cincinnati will probably be a big determinant of the rest of our season, and and how we can handle adversity as the season ends.’’
Instead of six strong innings by starter Robbie Ray -- and the bullpen closing it down -- Sunday’s story became more Padre woes at the Trop (they’ve lost 11 of their past 13 games in St. Petersburg).
“You worry about what you can control, and I could’ve controlled making a better pitch [to DeLuca],’’ Miller said. “He went full bore into the wall, made it to the spot, and everything kind of created that perfect storm that allowed that [DeLuca homer] to happen. Nothing we can do about it now.’’