SAN DIEGO — Swept at Dodger Stadium over the weekend, the Padres left Los Angeles on Sunday licking their wounds. They trailed by two games in the National League West race — with another series between the two fierce division rivals looming this weekend.
In the interim, the Dodgers would head to Colorado for four games against the last-place Rockies. If the Padres could merely keep pace, they’d have counted it as a win. Instead, they capitalized on a couple of Dodgers stumbles by earning a series victory over the Giants with an 8-4 victory on Thursday afternoon at Petco Park.
Now, only one game separates the Padres and Dodgers as they enter their final regular-season meeting of the season.
“Listen, we’re excited, we are human,” said manager Mike Shildt. “We are aware of how we didn’t put absolutely our best foot forward. We competed well, just couldn’t get on the good side of it.
“Ultimately, it’s about execution and playing the game. Really excited, can’t wait for tomorrow night. I wish it was tonight.”
The Padres’ new-look offense continued to mash on Thursday, pounding out eight runs after scoring seven on Wednesday. Really, the entire week marked an impressive response from a San Diego team that had stumbled over the weekend.
“What we’ve done really, really well this year,” said Padres second baseman Jake Cronenworth, “is each game is its own, no matter if we win or we lose the night before.”
In short, that’s how the Padres rallied from an NL West deficit that was nine games on July 3 to the point where they carried a division lead into L.A. last week. Then, after being swept, they took three of four from the Giants this week while the Dodgers dropped two games to the Rockies.
“The game is hard, the game is challenging, the ball doesn’t bounce your way,” Shildt said. “The thing I appreciate about this team is, collectively, we’re going to get a consistently competitive effort.”
On Thursday, Fernando Tatis Jr., Luis Arraez and Manny Machado all had two hits out of the top three spots in the lineup. After falling behind 2-0 with an uncharacteristically sloppy defensive third inning, the Padres rallied swiftly. They scored two in the fourth and six in the fifth. Machado’s two-run double was the big blow.
Starter Dylan Cease, meanwhile, allowed four runs over five-plus innings — though his line doesn’t account for some poor defending in that third inning, which led directly to two of those runs. From there, the Padres’ bullpen nailed it down.
It’s a testament to the depth of that bullpen that Shildt could attack Thursday’s game so aggressively. Even with a four-run lead, he went to four of his high-leverage arms. But those arms have largely been rested lately — and All-Star setup man Jason Adam went unused on Thursday.
The Padres can afford to be aggressive with the high-leverage arms in their bullpen because they have high-leverage arms in abundance. On Thursday, Jeremiah Estrada, Adrian Morejon, Mason Miller and Robert Suarez combined for four scoreless innings. It marked the 28th time this season that San Diego has gotten at least four scoreless innings from its ‘pen, easily the most in the Majors.
“It helps in the sense that we have a deep bullpen,” said Shildt. “… But the offense being able to dictate the game and being able to take control of the game as well, it sets us up.”
As much as anything, the Padres’ wins over San Francisco this week showed the way it’s all supposed to work. They played clean (and at times sparkling) defensive baseball. Their starters did enough. Their offense got them leads, then tacked on. And their bullpen locked it down.
So … can the Padres carry that formula into the weekend? They’ve done it all season against the Giants, winning 10 of 13 games between the two. But they’ve struggled against L.A., having dropped eight of 10 overall (losing the head-to-head tiebreaker in the process).
“We didn’t play our best baseball,” Gavin Sheets said of last weekend’s series loss. “It doesn’t matter who it’s against, whether it’s the Dodgers or anybody else. Every series from here on out is extremely important. … Every series from here on out is important for October baseball.”
This one especially. With 34 games to play, the Padres control their destiny in the NL West race. The next three games are the last time they’ll be able to gain ground directly on their biggest rival.
