Padres know experience matters in the playoffs, where you ‘live and die on every single pitch’

Growing up, Padres pitcher Nestor Cortes watched legends like Curt Schilling, Randy Johnson and Roger Clemens take the ball in the playoffs.

“Game 1, Game 4, Game 7,” he said, noting how they’d pitch on short rest.

So when the New York Yankees faced the Cleveland Guardians in the 2022 American League Division Series and a rainout postponed Game 5, Cortes found himself in a similar situation.

Jameson Taillon had been scheduled to start. Yankees manager Aaron Boone called an audible, handing the ball to Cortes on three days’ rest with the season on the line. Cortes had already pitched in Game 2, allowing two runs in five innings.

“’Booney’ called me into his office and he was like, ‘Hey, you’re going tomorrow. Give us whatever you got,’” Cortes said. “That was my moment of like, ‘Holy (bleep), I gotta get ready for tomorrow.’ And you know, I was a little sore or whatever. Popped two Advils and slept the night and it was good. It was like, ‘All right, (screw) it, let’s do it.’

“That was my ‘Oh (shoot)’ moment in the big leagues, that I felt like, ‘Wow, I put on the big-boy pants.’ It was that moment. It was great.”

Cortes delivered, allowing one earned run over five innings as the Yankees advanced to the American League Championship Series.

That outing, Cortes said, taught him that playoff baseball requires an all-hands-on-deck mentality.

“The team just wants valuable outs and valuable at-bats,” he said. “Whatever you did in the regular season, good or bad, it doesn’t really matter anymore.”

Cortes is one of 21 Padres players with postseason experience as the Padres head into the playoffs for the second consecutive season and third time in four years.

Most of the current clubhouse has been at least once. Manny Machado, Jake Cronenworth and Adrián Morejón are going as Padres for the fourth time in six seasons, while Fernando Tatis Jr. is making his third appearance (he missed 2022 due to suspension). For others, like two-time World Series champion Xander Bogaerts and veterans Machado and Yu Darvish, this will mark a seventh career postseason.

José Iglesias first tasted October baseball in 2013, then not again until 2024.

“That tells you how hard it is to be in the playoffs,” he said. “You gotta enjoy every single second of it, because you don’t know when you’re coming back.”

Whether it’s once or a dozen times, most say the experience matters.

Gavin Sheets first made the playoffs as a member of the 2021 White Sox, who lost to the Astros in the American League Division Series.

“I can still remember every play from it, every pitch from it, and just the atmosphere,” Sheets said. “There’s a reason that the teams that are in it every year are the most comfortable in it. When Houston was going through that really good run, they just seemed to always get better in the postseason. That comes from experience.

“I think that’s something that got us a little bit with Chicago. There was a ton of adrenaline, and I think the teams that are acclimated to it the most and know how to handle it are the teams that win in the postseason. I think that’s something we definitely have to our advantage in this clubhouse, is a lot of postseason experience.”

The pressure is almost impossible to replicate. Every ballpark is packed wall to wall, with fans on their feet. The noise is deafening. The field can feel like a pressure cooker. Defense is at a premium, as is putting the ball in play. Every moment fuels a shared heartbeat throughout the stadium, rising and falling with the drama.

“You live and die on every single pitch,” Sheets said. “I remember getting back after games and just being physically and emotionally exhausted. Every base hit, every walk, every strike, every ball. The crowd cheers for strikes. The crowd cheers for balls. It’s every single pitch, and you don’t know which pitch is going to be the one that decides the game. I think the biggest thing is just slowing it down, slowing down the moment.”

Doing that is like trying to stop a freight train.

“The game goes way faster,” said Ramón Laureano, who, if he can return from a fractured finger suffered on Wednesday, will be making his fifth postseason appearance. “The game goes 100 times faster. Not 10 times or 50 times, but 100 times. … The more you go every year, the better. I learned to control some moments, not be the hero. I think that has helped me.”

Michael King made his postseason debut out of the bullpen for the Yankees in 2020, tossing two scoreless innings during a game played without fans at Petco Park.

His next October appearance came in 2024. Now a starter, King delivered a gem, striking out 12 over seven shutout innings to help the Padres defeat the Braves in Game 1 of the wild-card series. He followed that with an outing in the National League Division Series, allowing five earned runs over five innings against the Dodgers, who eventually eliminated the Padres.

“Unfortunately, my first time was (during) COVID, so there was nobody in the stands here at Petco. So it almost was not playoff-like,” he said. “Last year was my first real experience of the playoffs. It’s all about harnessing the adrenaline. If you can focus the adrenaline into the things that make you good as a player, it ups your game by a billion. … And it’s the added pressure. I think it crumbles some people, but it really builds some people. It’s a very fun emotion to feel.”

When asked if he believes that experience will help him next week, King paused.

“I honestly would say no,” he said. “I think that you’re gonna still get the same butterflies, you’re gonna still have the same adrenaline. It’s not like because you’ve been there, done that, that your emotions get a little lessened. If it does, you’re in trouble. I think that you almost want it to feel fresh and new every time out there and just put your best foot forward.”

Playoff performance can vary wildly from the regular season. Machado carries a .215 batting average and a .684 OPS over 206 postseason plate appearances. Bogaerts’ playoff resume looks similar: a .223 average and .675 OPS in 207 trips. Tatis has been otherworldly in the playoffs, posting a 1.328 OPS and six home runs across 57 playoff plate appearances.

But in October, when you’re up against the best arms in the game, numbers don’t always tell the full story. Postseason baseball often hinges on the moment. Can you come through when everything is on the line? One swing, one timely hit, can change the trajectory of a series, just as an error or inferior defense can unravel a series. October often rewards clutch play — and a little luck.

Ryan O’Hearn reached the postseason twice with the Orioles and is 0-for-5 combined.

“I really would like to change that,” he said. “I think I’m definitely motivated by that a little bit. A lot a bit, actually.”

Still, he believes the experience is “definitely valuable.”

“The atmosphere is obviously a factor,” he said. “But I think just six months of a regular season, two months of spring training, all the anticipation leading up to a short amount of games, it can cause a lot of adrenaline and anxiety — just new energy that we haven’t played with in a long time. I think you have to be able to control that to perform at your best.

“You can’t recreate it … All the high pressure, all the eyeballs, all the cameras, how every pitch matters so much and everything is put under a magnifying glass. I just think if you can lean back on times that you’ve been through it before, you know what to expect. You know how to respond to adversity. And things are going to go wrong. That’s part of it. It’s not going to be perfect. But I think when something goes wrong and you have some experience to lean back on, it can put you in a better spot than if you were experiencing it for the first time. … I don’t know that there’s any, like, playbook to make it easier for somebody. I think the best players, they live for it, they feed off of it. Ultimately, you just can’t be afraid to fail.”

Next week will mark Mike Shildt’s fifth trip to the postseason as a major league manager. He went three times with the Cardinals and is making his second appearance in as many seasons with the Padres.

“As many people that have gone through this time of year that you can have that can rely and draw on those experiences and help others that are going through it, is very valuable,” he said.

This Padres clubhouse appears primed to pass on its postseason practices, to whatever point they may be beneficial.

“You just look around the locker room and all the guys that have experience here,” said reliever Mason Miller, who will be making his playoff debut. “I have plenty of resources and people to lean on and people to ask questions if I have them. I don’t even know if I’ll have to ask. I think they’ll be willing and open to do that for me, just on their own.

“You love watching playoff baseball growing up. Wait all year for it. Now I’ll get to experience that for the first time, which I’m really excited about.”