Padres Daily: Manny comes through; remarkable pen; who’s left; ho-hum excellence

by Kevin Acee

Good morning from Chicago,

A few veteran players have addressed teammates briefly before both of the Padres’ games here this week.

Xander Bogaerts gave a reminder Tuesday about doing what the game calls for in different situations that might come up. And early yesterday afternoon, before they played what might have been their last game this year, Manny Machado basically implored his teammates to keep on keeping on.

“Let’s just go out there and continue to grind,” he recalled saying. “It’s not easy. To climb these mountains isn’t easy. You’ve got the best of the best playing right now, who have all had a hell of a season and tremendous years. And this is why we’re here. Just go out there, compete, enjoy it, and just leave it out on the field.”

The Padres did. And now they get to do it again.

Dylan Cease was arguably as good as he has been all year. Adrian Morejón , Mason Miller and Robert Suarez turned in one of the Padres’ remarkable bullpen’s most remarkable performances of the year.

And Machado did what he said everyone should do and what he needs to do.

Game 2 of the National League Wild Card Series was just about everything a postseason game is supposed to be — fraught and full of potential turning points and pivotal moments.

You can read in my game story (here) from the Padres’ 3-0 victory over the Cubs about all of that and how Machado’s two-run home run in the fifth inning was the most pivotal moment of all.

“Breather,” Fernando Tatis Jr. said of what the homer provided. “He came up in the clutch. Having a three-run lead is like having an eight-run lead in the regular season. So it was enough for us and our pitching staff.”

Manny Machado – San Diego Padres (1)* pic.twitter.com/3gWQ1ySKm1

— MLB HR Videos (@MLBHRVideos) October 1, 2025

The Manny

Should the Padres win the decisive Game 3 today, Cubs manager Craig Counsell’s decision to have Shota Imanaga pitch to Machado with first base open will be discussed in Chicago for a long time.

Counsell said he considered intentionally walking Machado but ultimately believed in Imanaga.

“I mean, I don’t put a manager’s cap on,” Machado said. “I’m 0-for-(5) at that point. So I’m not thinking about that. For myself, I was just thinking about trying to get to Imanaga.”

To be clear, Machado has engaged in such a discussion before. He did not do so yesterday, perhaps because it was the eve of a huge game against the same team and same manager. Or maybe it was because he was hitless in his previous five at-bats in the series and entered yesterday hitting .202 with a .603 OPS in 46 since Aug. 6.

“He’s Manny Machado,” Padres manager Mike Shildt said. “He’s heading in a great direction in his career. I liked his swings all the way towards the end of the season. He was starting to get his groove. I just liked the way — including (Tuesday), including today — you just see him be that nice and easy and try to put a good swing, not try to do too much. When Manny is in that spot, it’s a lethal spot.”

Machado finished the regular season batting .304 (14-for-46) with four homers over his final 12 games.

He then went 0-for-3 with a walk in Game 1, grounding out at 99.6 mph and lining out at 107.3 mph.

“I hit the ball hard yesterday,” Machado said. “It was just outs. Sometimes that happens. … The swing is there. Just got to continue doing it and continue grinding. Having good at-bats I think at the end of the day, don’t worry about your swing, it’s just more about having good at-bats.”

What a relief

Ryan Finley wrote (here) about how the Padres three relief pitchers rewarded Shildt by each working across multiple innings.

It was impressive.

Perhaps most impressive was Morejón inheriting a runner on second base with two outs in the fourth inning and working a season-high 2⅓ innings in a season-high 33 pitches.

“The key to that was the efficiency of it,” Shildt said. “Adrian has been able to be really efficient this year.”

Indeed. Few pitchers have been more economical with their pitches than Morejón, who has averaged 13.6 pitches per inning.

Perhaps most notable, though, was what Miller did in reaching 104.5 mph with a fastball that completed one of his five strikeouts.

Jeff Sanders wrote about that and the other record Miller set in his postgame notebook (here).

Moving forward

Cease can’t do anything about his 4.55 ERA in the regular season.

“It was definitely a bit of a rough year,” he said. “But I think the biggest thing is to not let it kind of keep seeping into future starts. No matter how my previous ones go, I always just try to visualize positive things and think positive for the next ones.”

It might not seem all that impressive, but Cease’s 3⅔ inning yesterday were the most he had ever thrown in four career postseason starts. Moreover, he did what a starting pitcher is asked to do in the postseason when he kept his team in the game and got the bullpen to a manageable spot.

Cease struck out five, walked one and allowed three hits. The last one of those was a double by Seiya Suzuki. That is when Morejón came on.

“I was definitely pretty sharp,” Cease said. “I mean, in some ways you could argue that was probably one of my sharpest, if not my sharpest, of the year. Yeah, it was definitely solid. … It means a lot. At the end of the day, it was do or die, and none of us want to go home.”

Who’s left

Yu Darvish will start for the Padres today, and Jeff Sanders wrote about that (here) after Darvish spoke to the media yesterday morning.

The Cubs will start Jameson Taillon, which means the left-handed batters hitting in the 6-7-8 spots in the Padres’ lineup will almost certainly face a right-handed pitcher for the first time in the series.

“I would hope so,” Ryan O’Hearn said.

O’Hearn (1-for-6 with a walk), Gavin Sheets (0-for-4) and Jake Cronenworth (0-for-7) have combined to go 1-for-17 this series while facing five different left-handed pitchers over the past two days.

Sanders’ game preview (here) discussed the lineup construction, which despite my suggestions in yesterday’s newsletter was the same in Game 2 as it was in Game 1.

Taillon (11-7, 3.68) finished the regular season with a run of six starts in which he posted a 1.57 ERA over 34⅓ innings.

Presumably, he will have the short leash applied to almost any pitcher in the postseason but be expected to give the Cubs some measure of length.

The Cubs came out of yesterday with their pitching staff in decent shape, given that they were able to cover the final four innings without using their three highest-leverage arms and being able to save two of their left-handed relievers.

“The consolation today was we pitched really well in the back half of the game,” Counsell said. “They obviously used Morejón and Miller multiple innings and even Suarez multiple innings.”

Morejón and Miller, who have both pitched in the first two games of the series, were talking like they were going to be ready to go today.

“It’s the playoffs,” Miller said.

“No matter what,” Morejon said, “I’ll be ready for tomorrow.”

And maybe the Padres will use them in an instance where one out would end an inning.

“I would have an expectation that all hands are on deck tomorrow, but we’re also going to take their temperature and be smart,” Shildt said. “We’ve got to value their careers as well. We’ve only had two guys go three days in a row all year, and we’ve done it and saved it for these circumstances. Obviously in an elimination game, there are special circumstances.”

Ho-hum excellence

It looked almost routine, which is because of who caught it.

And Tatis has made better catches, though probably not bigger ones.

With two outs and a runner on first base in the eighth inning, Suarez took over for Miller and had the first batter he faced, Nico Hoerner, hit a 95 mph line drive to the corner in right field.

Tatis, who was playing shaded slightly toward the line, ran 49 feet at a speed of 24.3 feet per second and leaped to catch the ball.

Fernando Tatis Jr. ends the inning with an impressive grab! #Postseason

(MLB x @Nutrafol) pic.twitter.com/xC1jA5c3ZG

— MLB (@MLB) October 1, 2025

“Just being aggressive, the way I play,” Tatis said.

He said the play was “a little bit tougher” because “the sun came out at the last second.”

Tidbits

Machado’s home run was his eighth in the postseason with the Padres, extending his franchise record. Tatis is second with six.
Machado’s 15 postseason RBIs are also most in postseason history.
Tatis, whose 12 steals of third base this season were one fewer than major league leader Jose Caballero, became the third player in Padres history to steal third in the postseason. The others were Tommy Pham (2020) and Tony Gwynn 1996).
Kirk Kenney was busy back in San Diego, writing a story (here) about an old friend and lifelong Padres fan who made the trip to Wrigley Field and also going to Petco Park for a watch party and writing his “Scene & Heard” column (here).
Morejón’s nine postseason appearances are third most in team history behind Suarez (11) and Trevor Hoffman (12).
Morejón might never make a better play than his kick save in the sixth inning. And in case you were wondering, he said, “I had no intention to have the result the way that it did.”