San Diego Union-Tribune (Sunday)
FALLING FAST
Padres’ early 4-0 lead erased; team one game from elimination
The Phillies can smell it. They can see it and taste it. The flag-waving posse has cornered the Padres in baseball’s version of a box canyon at Citizens Bank Park with no real sign of escape.
It’s not just that the Padres are running out of bullets, down 3-1 in the National League Championship Series. As they frantically check holsters, they’re down to just one.
The Phillies shrugged off the Padres’ four-run breakout in the first inning to immediately score three of their own and bash baseballs the rest of the way in a 10-6 shootout victory that threatens to roll the credits.
“We only need to win one to get home,” said manager Bob Melvin, when asked about the daunting prospect of winning three straight. “That’s what we’re concerned about (Sunday) is winning one game. We have Yu (Darvish) on the mound.
“We have our best relievers available for multiple innings ... and our focus is to win one game and get it home.”
The Phillies scored in five of the first seven innings to out-thunder the Padres, who now must face ace Zack Wheeler. Though the Padres are not dead, they’ve moved well beyond breathing hard. Teams that go up 3-1 in a best-of-seven NLCS win 80 percent of the time.
In any best of seven? An even steeper 85 percent.
The odds feel ever more dreadful for the Padres, though, for a pair of reasons. One, retaining oxygen in their postseason lungs requires machete-ing through Wheeler, who mowed them down in a one-hit Game 1 shutout at Petco Park.
Two, it demands the Padres — who have not won more than five in a row this season, hardly a team that rips off big runs — to rattle off three consecutive victories without a single stumble.
“It’s great, but it’s not over,”
Phillies manager Rob Thomson said of trotting out Wheeler. “They’ve got a pretty good guy going, too.”
As with the offense much of this season, the Padres will need to find more ammunition under some of those rocks they’re using for cover today, Monday and Tuesday … if they can hold out that long.
When the Padres thirsted for damage swings against the Phillies on Saturday, they quenched things fast. Manny Machado cranked the first pitch he saw for a 379-foot home run off Bailey “Soon To” Falter.
Cleanup hitter Josh Bell singled, second baseman Jake Cronenworth gutted out a nine-pitch walk and first baseman Brandon Drury gapped a two-out, two-run double to right center that pushed the lead to 3-0.
When shortstop Haseong Kim singled in the fourth run of the opening inning, it seemed like a winning recipe of patience and aggressiveness — a line the Padres recently struggled to straddle.
The numbers seemed to portend smile-inducing things for the Padres, who entered the game 57-30 this season when scoring first. The Phillies, however, emphatically scored second.
Leadoff hitter Kyle Schwarber sliced a ball past the shift to right. Rhys Hoskins homered off Padres starter Mike Clevinger to cut the lead in half, nine pitches into the inning.
J.T. Realmuto walked, Bryce Harper hammered a run-scoring double to make it 4-3 before Clevinger recorded an out. He last pitched Oct. 11 in Game 1 of the NLDS against the Dodgers, chased after allowing five runs and six hits in just 2 2/3 innings. That translated to a 13.50 ERA.
As Clevinger walked off Saturday, his Game 4 ERA vanished into infinity.
“This is probably one of the worst days of my life,” Clevinger said. “That sums it up. It sucks.”
Though Melvin will be questioned for going with Clevinger and Sean Manaea out of the chute and staying with Manaea for too long, options probably were more limited than some would think.
Starting with reliever Nick Martinez, who was brilliant in three innings over 43 pitches but has not thrown more than 40 since July 8, likely would have meant seeing one or both anyway.
“If you told me we’re going to score six runs tonight, I’d probably think we have a pretty good chance to win the game,” Melvin said. “Getting off to a great start with four, come back and get a three-spot against us. Nick came in and stabilized things.
“Typically don’t want to use him for three innings, but ended up doing a job to hold us there.”
In the top of the fifth, Juan Soto followed Jurickson Profar’s walk with a two-run shot to right. In the bottom of the inning, Hoskins followed Schwarber’s walk by parking a ball 417 feet from home plate in left center to tie it at 6.
The Phillies immediately went back on the offensive against Manaea with a Realmuto walk producing a run on Harper’s second run-scoring double. When the ball was handed to reliever Luis Garcia, a badluck-hop off second base squirted past Cronenworth as Harper breezed home for a two-run lead.
Punch. Counter punch. Mop up the blood and brace for more.
The Padres entered the game 40-32 after a loss, routinely finding more answers than not. This time, the Phillies hammered baseballs to make that well of experience moot.
For the Padres, the loss despite the big-bat offense finally gushing like a geyser had to deflate enormously. When scoring four or more runs this season, the Padres owned a 67-19 record. They hit that mark two outs into the game.
Instead of riding all those runs from the start, the season now hangs by a thread. The only way out of this Old West shootout is to ride like the wind, straight into all those blazing guns.
Surviving a box canyon with one bullet? Not sure of the advanced analytics on that, but it’s not good.
bryce.miller@sduniontribune.com