ANAHEIM -- The 2026 Padres with a late lead and Mason Miller on the mound?
Fernando Tatis Jr. said it best on Saturday night: “Game over.”
Sure feels like it.
The Padres are baseball’s hottest team. They’ve won 10 of 11 and 13 of 15, moving within half a game of the Dodgers in the way-too-early National League West standings. And they’re doing it by winning every game they’re supposed to win -- because they have a closer that nobody can hit.
Miller again nailed down the save in a tense 2-1 victory over the Angels on Sunday afternoon at Angel Stadium, extending his remarkable scoreless streak to 32 2/3 innings. He’s one inning shy of Cla Meredith’s Padres record, set in 2006.
“It’s just amazing [for Miller] to be the same person … and be as elite and at the top of his game almost every single time,” said manager Craig Stammen. “That’s not easy to do. It’s almost impossible to do.
“We always talk about how hard he throws and how good his slider is. But his ability to be the same person every day is probably better than all that stuff.”
The longest scoreless inning streak in AL/NL history, going back to the start of the Live Ball Era in 1920, belongs to the Dodgers' Orel Hershiser (59 innings in 1988). Obviously, Miller has a long way to go to reach that mark. But given the utter dominance, you wouldn’t put it past him.
Not that Miller is spending any time thinking about those kinds of exploits.
“Success is a scary place sometimes, where you get complacent,” he said. “So I’m just staying up on everything and always focusing on getting a little better.”
Better? It’s hard to imagine Miller being better than this. Forget runs. He is barely even allowing baserunners. He’s faced 38 hitters this season, and only four have reached -- two via walks and two via singles.
Of those 38 hitters, Miller has punched out 27 of them -- a ridiculous 71.1% clip. That 71.1% strikeout rate is the highest by a pitcher in his first 11 appearances of a season since at least 1900. Put it this way: Miller struck out two of the three Angels hitters he faced on Sunday afternoon -- and his strikeout rate went down.
Then again, Miller has consistently done his best to downplay the streak, even the entire nature of it.
“It seems disconnected to me, over the course of two seasons,” he said. “This season is off to a good start. I finished last season strong. The two aren’t necessarily connected. I’m just focused on continuing my success this year. Things like [the streak] are great. But that’s the stuff where you put your head down and work.”
That mindset has allowed Miller to reel off this kind of streak in the first place. His stuff is obviously unbelievable -- a triple-digit fastball, plus one of the sport’s nastiest sliders. (Just look at the way Vaughn Grissom’s knees buckled in his ninth-inning at-bat against Miller on Sunday -- on a slider for a strike, no less.)
But beside the stuff, Miller’s consistency is remarkable. And that consistency is born of a certain humility.
Miller grabbed tons of headlines with his heavy-metal entrance. He let the Padres’ clubhouse attendants pick the song -- “Blind” by Korn. It now produces one of the coolest scenes in baseball. But frankly, it’s not something Miller cares all that much about. When those chords hit, he has a job to do.
The Padres might not have envisioned 31 straight scoreless outings from Miller (plus two more in the playoffs and four more at the World Baseball Classic). But a day like this one is precisely what they envisioned when they traded their top prospect, Leo De Vries, to the A’s to acquire him at last year's Deadline.
San Diego’s bullpen was already excellent. But with Miller on board, it’s a force. Adrian Morejon and Jason Adam, both All-Stars last season, are setup men. On Sunday, both were unavailable, so rookie Bradgley Rodriguez picked up five big outs. Jeremiah Estrada is on the IL with right elbow tendinitis, but is working his way back.
Add it all up, and if the Padres have a late lead, you probably don’t have much of a chance. On Sunday, Xander Bogaerts and Bryce Johnson hit RBI singles and Michael King grinded his way through five scoreless innings.
That was enough. With a bullpen like this one -- and Miller looming at the back end -- it usually is.