Hader, in third straight outing, locks down Padres’ first 3-game sweep
SAN DIEGO — Maybe — simply possibly — this time it’s for actual.
The Padres have tantalized earlier than this season. They’ve unleashed their starpower earlier than, they usually’ve appeared like a workforce constructed for a deep October run. Seriously; they’ve — they merely haven’t carried out it fairly often, and after they have, they’ve typically adopted it with even longer stretches of inconsistent play and underperformance.
So maybe it’s value taking all this with a requisite grain of salt. But the Padres swept the Angels at Petco Park this week, punctuating the collection with a tense 5-3 victory. They gained large, they usually gained small. In the method, they earned their first sweep of a collection lasting no less than three video games this season and their first sweep at Petco Park in over a calendar 12 months.
“There’s no special secret,” stated Fernando Tatis Jr. “We’re going out there, we’re playing good baseball, we’re putting good at-bats, we’re playing defense, we’re stealing bases. And we’re having better results.”
Wednesday’s collection finale featured greater than its share of drama. Hours earlier than first pitch, supervisor Bob Melvin famous that nearer Josh Hader doubtless wouldn’t be obtainable. He’d pitched in consecutive video games, and hadn’t pitched three straight days in his Padres tenure.
But whereas Hader performed catch, pitching coach Ruben Niebla approached him with an ask. For a variety of causes, the Padres wanted this one. They have been coming off a brutal street journey. They’d lastly began to construct some momentum with victories over the Angels on Monday and Tuesday.
If Hader have been up for it — and, finally, it was Hader’s resolution primarily based on his well being — the Padres needed him for the ninth, though they typically draw back from such utilization.
“It’s a big series for us to, obviously, get a sweep,” Hader stated. “Just got to get wins, too. I think all of that kind of factors in. But at the end of the day, I felt good enough that I was able to go three [in a row].”
The Angels tied it within the seventh with Matt Thaiss’ homer off Nick Martinez, however San Diego responded by scratching throughout a run apiece within the seventh and eighth innings, on Xander Bogaerts’ RBI groundout and Machado’s bases-loaded stroll.
In the meantime, Hader and Luis García bought unfastened within the Padres’ bullpen. When the lead remained two runs, the bullpen doorways opened and — for the primary time since he was a Brewer in September 2021 — Hader entered his third recreation in three days.
“He’s got a sense of where we are as a team,” Melvin stated. “He wanted the ball tonight in a save situation. He got it. Pretty efficient, too.”
Indeed, Hader made fast work of the Angels, allowing solely a one-out stroll to Taylor Ward as he nailed down his twentieth save of the season. Afterward, he stated he felt superb — no discernable distinction from another outing.
But he acknowledged he was nonetheless operating on adrenaline, and he wasn’t positive how he’d really feel on Thursday’s off-day or — extra notably — Friday’s collection opener in opposition to the Mets.
Hader has typically averted pitching 3 times in three days, and he shied away from it final month in San Francisco in an identical state of affairs. It’s not that he can’t do it, he says.
“The biggest thing is reading the body,” Hader stated. “Health is important. At the time, it’s easy to do things like that. But it’s more thinking about the longevity of that. It’s 162 games that we have to play. So, you blow it out too early and you’re not available at the late-end of the season, it’s no use, right?”
Evidently, it was lastly time for Hader — and the Padres — to step on the fuel pedal. And now a well-known query looms.
Things felt awfully bleak on Sunday, on the tail finish of what Melvin known as “just a miserable trip.” The Padres went 1-5 in Pittsburgh and Cincinnati and their season was spiraling. Now? After a sweep of the Angels, all of it feels a bit rosier. They made up a pair video games within the standings, too.
Is this the long-awaited breakout the Padres have clung to, their likelihood to lastly play just like the playoff contenders they so adamantly consider they nonetheless are?
“We’re in a spot the place we have now to at this level,” Melvin stated.
