PADRES PLAYOFF-BOUND
They clinch their sixth playoff berth in 52 years, and first since 2006
Tommy Pham (left) and Fernando Tatis Jr. celebrate clinching a playoff spot after the Padres defeated the Seattle Mariners 7-4 in 11 innings Sunday at Petco Park. The Padres are headed to the postseason for the first time since 2006.
A city and its lone remaining major professional sports franchise waited 14 years and then through the first six months of an ongoing pandemic and on Sunday through two extra innings.
Finally, for the first time since 2006 and just the sixth time in their 52 seasons of existence, the Padres are headed to the postseason.
“It’s just great,” shortstop Fernando Tatis Jr. said. “I feel so happy for the city of San Diego. I know it’s been so many years since they went to the playoffs. Bringing playoff baseball back to San Diego, I just get emotional.”
The Padres clinched that postseason berth by beating the Seattle Mariners 7-4 in 11 innings Sunday afternoon in a nearly empty ballpark, with just a few dozen team employees and the faces of a thousand fans affixed to cardboard cutouts looking on.
After Trevor Rosenthal struck out Philip Ervin, the celebration began.
Tatis kicked his right leg high in the air and headed toward center field to meet second baseman Jake Cronenworth and then the outfielders. Manny Machado, a smile as wide as his cheeks would allow, met first baseman Mitch Moreland for a bearish embrace. Players sprinted from the dugout.
The giant video board beyond left field flashed gold with the interlocking “SD” preceding “CLINCHED” in white.
Eric Hosmer, the veteran of two World Series signed in 2018 in large part to help show the way to the team’s emerging young players, walked the diamond passing out hugs.
“It’s extremely rewarding,” he said. “It’s exactly what I’ve been telling these guys how this feels. To come to a place where there has been a little bit of a drought, for us to be the group to break that
drought … is huge. It’s one thing to talk about it, but to finally feel it, it’s a great feeling, a great accomplishment. It’s still just step one. We’ve got a long way to go. But we’re going to enjoy it because it’s a big step for us.”
Soon, laundry carts rolled onto the field were being emptied of commemorative hats and T-shirts that read, “Respect San Diego.”
After about five minutes of hugs and hand slaps, the Padres retreated to their clubhouse. Before he left the field, Machado turned toward the buildings that overlook
Petco Park and pointed to fans watching from balconies and rooftops.
Inside, the Padres celebrated some more.
“There’s a lot of sparkling juice flying around, some sting in the eyes from sparkling grape juice,” manager Jayce Tingler said.
Theoretically, alcohol is banned from clinching celebrations this year as part of MLB’S safety guidelines. Since every victory with this group is celebrated with a raucous music and the cracking of hoppy beverages, it stretches the imagination to believe this longawaited one was dry.
“There’s some protocol,” Tingler said. “Yeah, I’ll leave it at that.”
Who could blame them? Their biggest victory in a while was typical of how they’ve achieved what they have this season.
They trailed early, lost two leads and ultimately secured their 21st comeback victory of the season by scoring three times in the top of the 11th.
Befitting of this strange season, the Padres then took the field for the bottom of the inning, having to wait for Rosenthal to get the final three outs before they could celebrate.
The poor air quality in Seattle due to wildfires along the West Coast prompted this series to be moved to San Diego, and the Padres were officially the home team though they batted first in each inning.
All good. It’s 2020. This is the year of things that didn’t previously make sense.
And so, here are the playoff-bound Padres.
The team whose record over the previous nine seasons was the second worst in the major leagues has the National League’s secondbest record this year.
The Padres’ 34th win in 54 games in this shortened season guaranteed they will begin a playoff series Sept. 30.
With six games remaining in the regular season, they can clinch second place with another victory or a Giants loss. Additionally, any combination of Padres wins and Marlins losses that total three would mean their bestof-three wild-card series is at Petco Park.
“We’re excited about the next phase of this,” Tingler said. “But for today and for the next couple of hours we’re going to enjoy it. We’ll enjoy every freaking moment of it. … We hope to make it a special run and we hope we will play a brand of ball that makes this city proud.”
For all that has been exciting and new this season, it was perhaps perfect that Wil Myers was one of Sunday’s heroes.
His three-run homer to straightaway center field in the sixth inning bounced beyond the shrubs in front of the batters’ eye and sent Padres players from the rails pumping their fists and clapping.
With Hosmer on first base having walked, Moreland bounced a ball over the wall in left field. Where Hosmer would have easily scored had the ball remained in play, he had to stop at third.
But Myers, the longesttenured Padre and perhaps their greatest metaphor, did what he and others have so often this season.
The player the Padres dangled in trade talks the past two years and who hit .239 in 2019, came through by hitting his 14th home run. His OPS at that point was an even 1.000, 261 points higher than his OPS last season.
“That’s probably the most gratifying homer I’ve hit,” Myers said on an interview Fox Sports San Diego after the game.
Myers had been around for five of the Padres’ nine straight losing seasons.
Moreland led off the 11th by blooping a double to left field that drove in in Machado from second base, where he had started the inning under the extra-inning rule in place for this Covidaltered season.
A two-out single by Profar scored Moreland, and Austin Nola came around from second when Moore mishandled Trent Grisham’s groundball.
While this was happening, Rosenthal was in the dugout all but demanding his way into working a second inning for the first time since 2017.
“When we scored that run,” Tingler recalled, “when Mitch dropped that double in, we were planning on going to the bullpen, and Rosenthal comes over and looks Larry and myself straight eyeball to eyeball and he said, ‘I got this. I’m going back out.’ At the end of the day, as you saw, that’s what we did. But before that we were making a move. That’s just credit to, not just Rosey, it’s these guys are prepared and they want the ball, they want the at-bat, they want the innings, they want to play baseball. And as a manager and as a coaching staff, what more can you ask when these guys are just laying it out night in and night out.?”
This year, they will have some extra nights.