When the San Diego Padres first saw the Miami Marlins in late July, their season was on the brink at 50-53.
They were 15 games behind the Los Angeles Dodgers in the National League West and looking up at five teams in the NL wild-card race and facing the prospect of being a seller at the trading deadline.
As San Diego (86-69) finishes a three-game series with Miami on Sunday, it is tied with the Chicago Cubs for the top wild-card spot after going 36-16 in the past 52 games. That includes five wins over Miami, including a 7-6 victory in 10 innings Saturday night.
How have they done it? Manager Craig Stammen points to the three wins in Miami from July 24-26 as a turning point.
“That just gave us the confidence that, yeah, we can turn the season around and we can make a push for the playoffs,” he said. “And beat some of these teams that were ahead of us at the time in the standings.”
The ironic thing is that the Padres’ biggest moves at the trade deadline — acquiring pitchers Robbie Ray and Casey Mize — haven’t helped much. Mize’s earned run average with San Diego soared to 6.64 in nine starts after allowing five runs in three innings Saturday night, and Ray hasn’t been much better at 5.22.
But an offense that stunk over the season’s first half has sparkled in the second half. Saturday’s victory marked the ninth time in 10 games they’ve scored at least six runs.
“We’ve got a lot of fight and we’ve got a bunch of dogs on this team,” said rookie catcher Ethan Salas, whose RBI single in the 10th inning gave the team its 11th walk-off win of the year.
Walker Buehler (8-6, 4.58 ERA) takes the mound on Sunday, hoping for more length than he’s provided in his past two starts (seven total innings). Buehler is 2-1 with a 3.79 ERA in eight career starts against Miami.
The Marlins will turn to fellow right-hander Sandy Alcantara (13-10, 3.84), who’ll pitch for the third time this week. After starting on Monday night and working five innings in a no-decision in an 8-7 loss at Arizona, he came out of the bullpen Wednesday night to earn his first career save with a 1-2-3 ninth inning in his team’s 4-3 victory.
Alcantara, who’s winless in his last seven starts dating back to Aug. 8, is 3-2 with a 3.38 ERA in seven career starts against San Diego.
Miami was eliminated from the playoff picture on Friday night but fought on Saturday night like a team competing for the right to play in October. It built a 5-1 lead and rebounded after squandering that advantage to force extra innings on Griffin Conine’s pinch-hit homer off Mason Miller in the ninth.
However, a bullpen that’s been ineffective after seeing key pieces like Anthony Bender and Pete Fairbanks go down for the season couldn’t get the job done again.
“We came into this season expecting to be one of the six National League teams that would play beyond the regular season,” Miami manager Clayton McCullough said. “And we’re not going to be able to do that.”
–Field Level Media
