Padres beat D-backs, finish regular season with 90 victories; catching update

Elias Díaz exiting Game 161 with discomfort in his left oblique has at least forced the Padres to scramble contingencies into place for the postseason.

But perhaps adding Luis Campusano to the taxi squad on Sunday and not immediately activating him was a clue that Díaz dodged a significant injury.

So was this: Díaz warmed up JP Sears while Freddy Fermin got his gear on before the start of the second inning. Fermin played all nine innings of the Padres’ 12-4 win over the Diamondbacks in the regular season finale — securing back-to-back 90-win seasons for the first time in franchise history — but questions about Díaz’s availability made it necessary to have a third catcher at least along for the ride to Chicago.

“(Díaz) caught a between-innings; we put a stop to that,” Padres manager Mike Shildt said with a laugh. “ … He felt good enough to do that. Showed up and medically still there, but he feels better and was able to move a little bit freer today. So it’s going to be a constant monitoring.”

Díaz said after the game that he too felt that he was improving and expected to be behind the plate for Game 1 for Nick Pivetta.

But to be safe, Campusano got into San Diego around 5:30 a.m. Sunday after making the five-hour drive from the Padres’ spring training complex in Peoria, Ariz., where he’d been since the end of Triple-A El Paso’s season last Sunday.

Named a Pacific Coast League All-Star on Saturday, Campusano hit .336/.441/.595 with 25 homers and 95 RBIs in 105 games this year at Triple-A El Paso.

He was 0-for-21 with six walks and 11 strikeouts in sporadic play across 10 games in the majors, which at one point included one plate appearance between June 1 and June 13. Campusano did not catch a single pitch this year for the big-league team and was not expecting to be activated Sunday after making the long drive himself from Arizona.

“Maintaining, swinging, catching pens. Normal stuff. Nothing too crazy,” Campusano said of how he spent the last week. “ … If they need me, I’m ready. That’s why I’m here, right?”

Strong finishes

With nothing on the line on Sunday, three regulars filed out of the game after two at-bats.

They were productive at-bats.

Fernando Tatis Jr. led off the game with a single to start a five-run rally in the first inning and went 1-for-2 with a run scored. Manny Machado singled in a run during that first-inning parade and homered to give the Padres a 6-2 lead in the third inning. It was Machado’s first home run and multi-hit game since Sept. 17. He entered the game hitting .207/.268/.332 in 49 games since the All-Star break and was out of the lineup twice this week after not taking a day off all season until Sept. 14.

“Just being off your feet kind of helps, for sure,” Machado said. “ … The swing’s feeling pretty good.”

Added Shildt: “Manny knows what time it is. You don’t want him to do too much. Just be Manny. Nice pretty stroke through the middle (on the single) and seeing the ball really good, not trying to do too much. And nice pretty swing to get the ball out of the ballpark. A lot of great at-bats. Tati looks great. Manny looks great.”

Shortstop Xander Bogaerts went 1-for-2 with two-run double — his 30th two-bagger of the season — before he was removed from the game.

Center fielder Jackson Merrill doubled twice and drove in three runs, Ryan O’Hearn collected two hits and two runs scored as the first baseman and DH Jake Cronenworth and second baseman Jose Iglesias each drove in two runs.

“It feels good every day we do this,” Merrill said. “We’re in a good spot. Just say right there, keep our heads high and play strong.”

Luis Arraez was the only regular who did not play.

‘Delusional hope’

Officially, the Padres have only ruled out Ramón Laureano through the wild-card and NLDS, but the expectation that his “shattered” right index finger, as Padres manager Mike Shildt described the injury, will be in a splint for three weeks colors the 31-year-old’s frame of mind as he prepared to board the flight to Chicago.

Game 1 of the NLCS is set for Oct. 13 and Game 1 of the World Series is scheduled for Oct. 24.

“I have delusional hope, yes,” Laureano said.

Toward that end, Laureano said he’s doing a bit of activity in the gym but mostly focusing on resting/healing and his new job as a cheerleader.

“Disappointed,” Laureano said, “but at the end of the day, it’s part of my life and I’ve got to move forward and do the best job that I can to rehab this as quick as possible and heal this and just support my teammates and help them against the opposition.”

Notable

• Tatis and RHP Nick Pivetta were selected as the Padres’ MVP and Pitcher of the Year, respectively, by the San Diego chapter of the Baseball Writers Association of America. Tatis led the team in WAR as calculated by fangraphs.com (6.1) and paired a team-high 32 steals with 25 homers and an .814 OPS. Pivetta, the Padres’ Game 1 starter in the NL wild-card series, went 13-5 with a 2.87 ERA and led the team in innings (181⅔).
• LHP Kyle Hart was optioned to the Arizona Complex League to make room for LHP JP Sears to start the regular-season finale. Hart cannot return for 15 days without an injury to the staff, so he will not be part of the team’s wild-card or NLDS plans.
• Sears threw a season-high 113 pitches over 5⅔ innings of two-run ball. He struck out four, walked three and allowed seven hits. RHP Bradgley Rodriguez struck out three over 1⅓ scoreless innings. RHP David Morgan struck out two in a scoreless eighth. RHP Randy Vásquez allowed two runs in the ninth inning.
• The team’s 90 wins are tied with the 2022 squad for the fifth-most in franchise history.
• Sunday’s sellout crowd of 45,072 pushed the season total to 3,437,201, a new franchise record. The 72 sellouts were also a club record.