MILWAUKEE — Each one seems more improbable than the last.
The Padres on Wednesday beat the Brewers 3-1, with all their runs coming on a homer Gavin Sheets hit just over the wall in right field with two outs in the ninth inning.
“We’ve got to figure out a way to make the scoreboard say ‘9’ all the time,” manager Craig Stammen said. “Just incredible job by these guys. They never give up. They can look like they’re just struggling all game long, and then all of a sudden, lock it in when we need to.”
At the end of a game in which 19 consecutive Padres batters made outs between the third and ninth innings, Mason Miller locked down his 13th save in 13 tries to secure the Padres’ 13th comeback victory, their 13th victory decided in the seventh inning or later and their eighth victory earned in their last offensive half-inning.
All that in the season’s first 42 games and in their first 25 victories. They join the 1968 Orioles as the only teams to ever have a batting average as low as .222 and an OPS as low as .662 and a winning percentage of at least .595 after 42 games.
“We’re not playing as an offense; we’re not at our peak right now,” Sheets said. “But we’re having unbelievable at-bats in the most important part of the game.”
Before Miguel Andujar’s two-out single off Brewers closer Abner Uribe, a walk by Xander Bogaerts and Sheets’ blast, it had seemed unfathomable that the Padres would win.
Sort of like when they beat the Cardinals on Sunday after Nick Castellanos tied the game with a two-run homer with two outs in the ninth inning. Sort of like when they scored five runs in the ninth inning against the Mariners to win by a run on April 15. Sort of like when they trailed the Rockies by three runs at the start of the ninth and won on Sheets’ three-run homer on April 23.
Wednesday was, in fact, Sheet’s third three-run, game-winning homer of the season. He is the first player in MLB history to hit three go-ahead three-run homers in the ninth inning in a season.
“When Bogey was up, just being on deck, just telling myself I wanted that at-bat,” Sheets said. “Just like, continued to just say, ‘I want this at-bat. I want the moment.’”
Even though the Padres have made a habit of stealing victory from nearly certain defeat, this was surprising, coming as it did on a night in which Brewers starter Jacob Misiorowski struck out 10 over seven scoreless innings and the Brewers cobbled together a run in the fifth inning with tenacious contact and nuanced misplays by Padres infielders.
After Sal Frelick led off the bottom of the fifth with a single through the right side, No. 9 batter Joey Ortiz laid down a bunt that rolled back to pitcher Michael King. First baseman Ty France had mistakenly run toward the ball when Ortiz squared, so King had to hold onto the ball while second baseman Fernando Tatis Jr. sprinted over from his spot just steps from the bag at second base. Tatis arrived a second too late, and the Brewers had two on with no outs.
The next batter, Jackson Chourio, hit a ball to Manny Machado that it seemed could turn into a double play. Machado fielded the ball in front of Frelick, who stopped and ran back toward second with Machado giving chase. Machado then threw to Tatis for the force out, thinking Tatis would then throw to third to get Frelick. But Tatis held the ball and did not throw to third, as shortstop Xander Bogaerts had not started running to cover that base until after Machado threw to second and Tatis did not have a clear lane to make a throw.
A grounder to the right side by Brice Turang scored Frelick with the game’s only run in the first 17⅔ innings.
The Padres had more hits against Misiorowski in the first three innings than he had allowed in his previous two games combined. With singles by Sheets and France, they even got a runner to third base with two outs in the second.
But for that to have produced a run would have required Rodolfo Durán getting his first major-league hit off Misiorowski. That at-bat ended with Duran striking out swinging at a 102 mph fastball.
The Padres had at least one single in each of the first three innings, and Misiorowski had thrown 59 pitches to that point. But he got through the fourth and fifth on eight pitches apiece and the sixth on seven, enabling him to last through seven and run his scoreless streak to 18⅔ innings.
Tatis’ second hit, with one out in the third, gave the Padres their last baserunner until Andujar lined the first pitch he saw from Uribe into center field.
“I was trying to hit the ball up the middle,” Andujar said. “I don’t try to do too much.”
Bogaerts followed with a six-pitch walk. Then Sheets watched a slider up and away on the first pitch before sending the second pitch, a slider in almost the same place, 389 feet to the gap in right field, where it came down just beyond a leaping Frelick and about two feet past the wall.
“It’s a weird belief that we’re gonna get it done,” Sheets said. “I mean, in the hardest part of the game. The whole entire dugout just keeps saying, ‘Hey, this ain’t our first time doing this and we’re gonna get it done right here.’ And just everybody truly feeds off that. I mean, the staff, the players, like everybody. It’s almost like an expectation where if we don’t get it done, we’re kind of looking around like ‘Ah. We didn’t do it today. That’s kind of weird.’ It’s a pretty cool feeling. It’s hard to explain, because you don’t often see. Usually, when the closer comes in and everything’s going, you know, the team is a little defeated, but yeah, we don’t have that.”
