PITTSBURGH — A season already filled with stirring comebacks and eventful victories gained another memorable entry Wednesday at PNC Park, where the San Diego Padres played almost four hours of sloppy, ridiculous, tenacious and ultimately successful baseball.
A day after the Padres waited out a two-hour, 40-minute rain delay and won just past midnight, they made several costly defensive gaffes, emptied their bullpen and were forced to pull their closer after six pitches. They also piled up 14 more hits, including three momentum-swinging home runs, in a seesaw contest that ended with a familiar sort of result: Padres 9, Pittsburgh Pirates 8 (in 10 innings).
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“Obviously, I wasn’t here last year,” starter Michael King said after grinding through five innings that were far from his best, “but whenever I ask guys why the Padres weren’t good last year, they all said that we lost the close games. And I don’t know if there’s even an answer as to how you win the close games. But I know our record’s been very good, and I know our clutch hitting and pitching has been very good. So I think it’s just a testament to growth of the players and chemistry as a team and full trust in whoever’s at the plate or whoever’s pitching.”
In capturing their 27th comeback win and a sixth consecutive series, the Padres improved to 63-52 overall, 13-3 since the All-Star break, 25-18 in one-run games, and 5-1 in extra innings. They suffered when two of their highest-paid stars, Manny Machado and Xander Bogaerts, committed errors yet surged back as both veterans atoned with alert plays in the field. They lost their most productive player, Jurickson Profar, to a bruised knee yet received three big swings from two others with modest salaries and months of productivity.
Rookie phenom Jackson Merrill homered in the second to cut a 2-0 deficit in half. Veteran catcher Kyle Higashioka hit a three-run homer in the fourth to give San Diego a 5-4 lead. And, with the Padres down to their penultimate out, Merrill homered again in the ninth to tie the score at 6-6.
In the 10th, Bogaerts and Machado each drove in a run as the Padres acquired welcome distance. Then Tanner Scott, the prize of the Padres’ aggressive trade deadline, issued three walks. Then Adrian Morejon came on to deliver his first career save.
Afterward, in a familiar refrain for any number of Padres, Higashioka lauded the team’s “fighting spirit.”
“Not every game is gonna be perfect. And we definitely didn’t really help ourselves out in the field today, me being a very important part of that,” said Higashioka, who was charged with two passed balls. “But I think it’s a credit to everybody, including the bullpen and (King), to just continue to grind it out and never lose hope.”
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Even as chaos descended upon PNC Park for a second consecutive night, the Padres never lost their wits. In the sixth, Profar took a 94.8 mph pitch off his right knee, went to the ground in agony, stayed in the game, and was pulled after he hobbled to second base on a base-running play. In positive news, manager Mike Shildt later said imaging was negative and that Profar is day to day.
The left fielder’s exit from the game indirectly contributed to a bizarre bottom of the ninth.
“That whole inning,” Machado said, “was just kind of a f—ed up inning.”
With Robert Suarez attempting to preserve a tie game, the Padres closer was charged with a pitch-clock violation even though, seconds earlier, Pirates batter Ji Hwan Bae had gotten away with a pitch-clock violation of his own. From his post at third base, Machado immediately began walking toward home-plate umpire Andy Fletcher and gesturing emphatically as he called attention to the oversight.
Shildt quickly went onto the field to, he later explained, make a similar argument — the umpires eventually retracted the pitch-clock penalty against Suarez — while also seeking to calm Machado and the rest of his team. At that point, Schildt had expended his entire bench; an ejection would have resulted in a pitcher being brought into the game to play a defensive position.
The unintended consequence: Fletcher informed Shildt that his coming onto the field amounted to a second mound visit during the inning. By rule, the Padres would have to lift Suarez after the conclusion of Bae’s plate appearance. So, when Shildt returned to the dugout, he immediately relayed a message. Scott, who hadn’t been up in the bullpen, needed to get hot as quickly as possible.
In the end, it worked out. Suarez induced a fielder’s choice for a second out before leaving. Scott, before his wildness in the 10th, promptly induced a groundout to end the ninth.
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“What we learned about Tanner, even (Tuesday) night, he throws about four to five bullets and he’s like, ‘I’m ready to go,’” Shildt said.
Scott, with his uncommon ability to speed through a warmup, could prove to be a natural fit. All season, Shildt has espoused the value of being “elite adjusters.” As they did the previous night and on dozens of other nights, the Padres would overcome less-than-ideal circumstances (or performance) Wednesday.
It began early, after a 33-pitch first inning by King.
Jackson Merrill is the first player with multiple multi-homer games that also included a game-tying or go-ahead HR in the 9th or later at age 21 or younger
h/t @EliasSports https://t.co/kD1TWAQl1Q
— Sarah Langs (@SlangsOnSports) August 8, 2024
“I wasn’t trying to hit a homer in that situation,” Merrill said of his second-inning blast, “but … I think when a team gets that little, like, scent or hint of, ‘Oh, this team’s out of it,’ that’s when they really get on you. But we never gave them that tonight. We stayed in it the whole time.”
It continued through the middle innings with Machado shaking off a throwing error by stealing second base and subsequently scoring on a single by Merrill.
And it lasted late into the night, with Bogaerts booting a grounder and later making an accurate throw home to cut down a runner and eventually singling in the go-ahead run in the 10th.
“We just kept fighting,” Machado said. “We didn’t give up. It was a tough one. … Obviously, we don’t want to be (making defensive mistakes). But you turn the page and baseball’s crazy, how it’ll give you an opportunity to redeem yourself.”
The Padres seized on multiple such opportunities Wednesday. As a rolling team amid a pennant race, they are eager for more chances of all varieties in Thursday’s series finale.
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“I feel like I’m checking every box my first year,” Merrill said. “I think the biggest thing for me is just how I come to the field every day and I just feel like it’s a family in here. I try to get here as early as possible some days just so I can hang out with these guys.”
(Top photo of Jackson Merrill hitting his second solo home run of the game: Charles LeClaire / USA Today)