Padres finish trip 1-5, fall to Reds 7-3
San Diego closed a 1-5 road trip with a 7-3 loss in Cincinnati and is half a game back of Arizona, tied in the loss column, with 19 games left in the wild-card race.
Brito's homer off Mize breaks a tie
The Padres lost the finale in Cincinnati 7-3 on September 2, closing out a road trip that finishes 1-5 over the last five games. Casey Mize worked 4 innings, allowing 5 hits and 4 earned runs with a walk and 4 strikeouts, and it was Juan Brito's three-run homer that turned a 3-3 game — the first time in about a month the Padres had allowed a homer with 3 or more runs on it, per AJCassavell of MLB.com, who traced the last one back to Tim Tawa on August 3 in Arizona.
Reds5-0Reds3-4Reds3-7Ty France went 2-for-3 with a homer and 2 RBI to keep the Padres within reach, but it wasn't enough to finish the trip on a high note. The lone win came August 31, a 5-0 shutout of the Reds, before a 4-3 loss on September 1 and Wednesday's finale made it 1-4 over the last five games. Ethan Salas flew out to the warning track in his first big league at-bat on September 2 — per AJCassavell, he's now the youngest catcher to appear in a game since Pudge Rodriguez in 1991 and the youngest Padres catcher since Mike Ivie in 1971.
Arizona, and 19 games left to settle it
At 73-67, San Diego sits half a game back of Arizona for the final NL Wild Card spot and tied with the Diamondbacks in the loss column, per AJCassavell of MLB.com — with 19 games left before the two clubs close the season against each other at Petco Park. Both clubs carry an elimination number of 13, and AJCassavell notes their remaining schedules are effectively identical: opponents for both combine for a .488 winning percentage the rest of the way.
The gap to the top of the field is real — Philadelphia (79-61) leads the wild card at plus-5.5 games with an elimination number of 19, and Chicago (79-62) sits at plus-5.0 with an elimination number of 14. But the chase for the third spot is just as live behind San Diego: Miami is 3.0 back with an elimination number of 10, St. Louis is 4.0 back at 5, and Pittsburgh 5.0 back at 4. The Padres are 1-4 in their last five games — not what a half-game race calls for, but the number that matters right now is 13.
Upcoming
The Padres host the Yankees tonight, with Walker Buehler (8-6, 4.66 ERA) opposite New York's Max Fried (4-4, 2.80 ERA). Buehler's last turn came against Tampa Bay on August 29 — 5 innings, 3 earned runs, 3 strikeouts, no walks, on 71 pitches — while Fried threw 3.2 innings against Boston that same day, allowing 1 earned run on 3 hits with 4 strikeouts and a walk over 63 pitches, with neither starter picking up a decision.
New York is favored to take the opener, and the market expects a low-scoring game — reasonable given Fried's ERA sits nearly two full runs below Buehler's and neither starter has gone more than 5 innings his last time out. San Diego, half a game behind Arizona with 19 to play, needs its rotation to hold up as much as its bats do to get the homestand started right.