Postseason baseball moves slowly and turns quickly, and it leaves a lasting impression.
Tedious and tense at the same time, everything matters and everything is remembered.
Following four hours, 13 minutes of wrought baseball Saturday, the Padres’ memories of their first-round playoff game hinge on what happens Sunday.
The Padres had a chance Saturday night to close out their National League wild-card series against the Mets. They did not.
They came back from a one-run deficit to tie the game twice, but they never led and ultimately fell 7-3 at rollicking Citi Field.
“We knew coming into this game it was gonna be tough,” Padres center fielder Trent Grisham said. “Anytime a team is fighting for its life, it’s going to come out with guns blazing. And we’re going to be in that same situation tomorrow.”
Maybe if Blake Snell had been sharper, as he was the final three months of the regular season. Maybe if Manny Machado had come through in even one of two big spots the way he often did in the regular season. Maybe if Jake Cronenworth, Brandon Drury or Ha-Seong Kim had gotten a single hit.
The Padres on Sunday will try to make sure those things don’t haunt them all winter.
The two teams will play again. The loser will not play again until 2023. The winner advances to the National League Division Series, which begins Tuesday at Dodger Stadium.
Either way, the Padres will board a chartered plane Sunday night. That plane will fly to Los Angeles and players and staff will board buses from the airport to their Pasadena hotel, or the plane will land in San Diego and after the team buses return to Petco Park everyone will go their separate ways.
A long season is finally down to a must-win.
“We’re just gonna go out there and leave it on the field,” Machado said. “At this point in the year, it’s about 27 more outs.”
San Diego native Joe Musgrove (10-7, 2.93 ERA) will be the Padres’ starting pitcher in the deciding game, which will begin at 4:07 p.m. PT (ESPN, 97.3-FM).
“We’ve got Joe going for us, and I don’t think anybody in this clubhouse would want anybody else going for us,” Cronenworth said.
Chris Bassitt, who was 15-9 with a 3.42 ERA but who the Padres beat twice in the regular season, will start for the Mets.
In Saturday’s high-stakes game, the Padres faced high velocity.
There were just 13 pitchers in the major leagues this season who threw at least 80 pitches at 100 mph or faster, and the Padres saw two of them.
The Mets got six innings from two-time Cy Young winner Jacob deGrom.
“He came out throwing 101, 102,” Padres manager Bob Melvin said. “So obviously he had a good fastball early on. But I think what made him effective later on was he changed what he was doing, started leaning on his slider a lot more and kept us off balance that way.”
The Padres replaced deGrom with hard-throwing Edwin Diaz, who was the major leagues’ best closer in the regular season, at the start of the seventh inning.
It was the earliest Diaz had entered a game all season. He allowed a one-out single to Austin Nola before retiring Jurickson Profar and Juan Soto on grounders to the right side.
The Mets scored four runs in the bottom of the seventh.
They loaded the bases and scored two runs against Adrian Morejón without him recording an out.
Pierce Johnson came in with runners at second and third and allowed both runners he inherited to score.
Still, with a five-run lead, Mets manager Buck Showalter stuck with Diaz. The right-hander retired Machado on two pitches before walking Josh Bell on four. He was removed after striking out Cronenworth on three pitches to bring his total to for the game to 28.
Showalter then went to Adam Ottavino, who ended the inning by striking out Drury but was unable to finish the ninth, loading the bases on two walks and a hit batter, and then walking Machado to force in a run.
Seth Lugo relieved Ottavino and retired Bell on a groundout to end the game.
Two Padres who played big roles in a 7-1 victory in Game 1 contributed again in Game 2.
A night after his solo home run in the second inning added to a 2-0 lead, Grisham tied Saturday’s game 1-1 with a solo homer in the third inning.
He became just the third Padres player to ever homer in consecutive postseason games, joining Ken Caminiti (1996 NL Division Series) and Jim Leyritz (1998 NLDS).
Grisham also walked and scored in the fifth inning to tie the game 2-2.
Nola’s sacrifice bunt moved Grisham to second, and he scored on a line drive single by Profar that hit the right field line. Profar hit a three-run homer and scored twice Friday.
The Padres had a prime chance to take the lead in the fifth when Soto lined his second single of the game to right field to move Profar to third. But deGrom struck out Machado on four pitches and Bell on three to end the inning.
Machado also struck out to end the third inning with Soto and Profar at the corners.
“We were unable to cash in there early,” Machado said. “I wasn’t able to maybe get one of those runs across with less than two outs there.”
Perhaps more significant than failing to get much going against one of the best pitchers of the past generation and the best closer in the game, the Padres were set up for failure by Snell. He had been among the most effective dozen or so starting pitchers in the majors for the final two months of the season but could not find the strike zone with his fastball or get his slider to consistently slide.
“I’m not gonna be able to sleep, I know that,” Snell said. “It’s frustrating, but we’ve got a good team here and they’ll win tomorrow and give me another opportunity to help us win another game.”
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