Mason Miller Unable to Close the Door on Brewers, Leaving Padres Facing Elimination

[Steve Drumwright]

 

Throughout everything the San Diego Padres experienced this year—the offensive funk of May and June, the woes of the starting rotation—there was always one piece of the Friars that was reliable from Opening Day through the NL Wild Card Series.

The bullpen.

But after two days in Wisconsin, the best of the Padres' relievers were beaten in the biggest of situations. Thus, the Padres find themselves in a 2-0 hole against the Milwaukee Brewers in the best-of-five NL Division Series following superstar closer Mason Miller surrendering a walk-off two-run single to Jackson Chourio with two outs in the bottom of the ninth inning for a 4-3 loss. It came less than 24 hours after left-hander Adrian Morejon was tagged for a go-ahead solo homer by William Contreras in the bottom of the seventh.

Those players will need to regroup if the Padres are to pull off what is now a very imposing task: having to win three straight games against the team that posted MLB's best record this season. Granted, two of those three games would be at Petco Park, where the Padres have been one of the best home teams since the end of July.

This one stings for more than a few reasons. Chief among them is that it was the Padres' best pitcher getting beat with the game on the line.

With the way the game developed, manager Craig Stammen called upon Miller for a six-out save, which would have been just the second of his career. Miller zipped through the eighth against the Nos. 2-3-4 hitters in the Brewers' lineup on just 12 pitches, striking out Brice Turang and Jake Bauers and getting William Contreras to fly out to right.

Miller's ninth inning began rather routinely as Garrett Mitchell grounded out to shortstop Xander Bogaerts. But then things turned. Brewers captain Christian Yelich took a first-pitch slider for a strike, then looked at four straight balls. Another left-handed hitter, Sal Frelick, was down in the count 1-2, including Yelich stealing second, then Miller missed with three pitches in a row. That matched Miller's season high for walks in a game, done six times. Pinch-hitter Andrew Vaughn flew out to shallow center on three pitches for the second out. A second pinch-hitter, Gary Sanchez, worked Miller for a six-pitch walk to load the bases.

Baseball's most dominant closer, the one with the most strikeouts of any reliever this season, possessing a ferocious four-seam fastball and a slider that could be the game's best pitch, was on the ropes as Chourio, the Brewers' best player even at 22 years old, stepped to the plate.

Miller started Chourio off with a 100.8 mph four-seamer up and in that Chourio swung through. He stayed with his four-seamer and tried to get Chourio to bite at one outside of the zone at 102.2 that evened the count. Miller then fired one nearly right down the middle at 102.2 that Chourio again took a mighty hack at and missed. He gassed up yet another four-seamer, this one at 103.5 mph, that was on the lower-outside corner that Chourio fouled back. The next pitch was the first slider of the at-bat, missing low to bring the count to 2-2. The final pitch was middle up and at 101.3 mph, with Chourio whistling it past Miller's attempted stab at the ball, then rocketing past a diving second baseman Jake Cronenworth and into center. The tying run was in. Frelick was barreling around third, but center fielder Jackson Merrill's throw was late and off the mark.

The Padres had lost—and now their season is on the brink, one defeat away from elimination.

Two games. Two losses, both at the hands of the Padres' best relievers. The hit Miller gave up was the first of his career against any of the Brewers on the roster in eight innings.

This one was different from Morejon the day before, where the left-hander couldn't find the strike zone for an at-bat and yielded the game-changing homer.

Miller was asked to do something many thought would come up at some point in the postseason. Get six outs. Stammen said postgame that going into Game 2, among the plans the Padres had was their stud closer getting six outs. There were only nine times this regular season that Miller had been asked to do that. Makes sense as the regular season doesn't have the importance of the postseason. Closers typically just pitch the ninth inning. Miller had gone two innings two times this season, resulting in walk-off wins. But not a six-out save in the postseason.

He is built for the situation, but he didn't come through for one of the rare times. It is fair to question the bullpen usage by Stammen in this game. Right-hander Jason Adam wasn't deployed and could have been used in the eighth. Morejon threw a second inning after giving up the go-ahead homer and threw 31 pitches. Miller was the only leverage arm not used in Game 1.

After cruising through that eighth inning in Game 2, Miller threw another 28 in the ninth, giving him a season-high 40.

It felt like the right plan when Miller came on for the eighth, but you also knew that the Brewers were going to battle Miller down to the final pitch. That is what they do. If this matchup happened 10 times in that situation, that might be the only time Chourio gets a hit. Maybe not.

But now the Padres are headed back to Petco Park to figure out how to win Tuesday. Then they can worry about Game 4 on Wednesday. And then, they hope, Game 5 on Friday back in Milwaukee.

It won't be easy. But nothing for the Padres has been this season.

 

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