It Was the Plan, Not the Players, that Cost the Padres A Chance to Advance

[Steve Drumwright]

It is OK to be mad. The San Diego Padres were that close to potentially having not only one game, but any if not all of the four going their way.

It is OK to be sad. What the Padres did since July 24 almost feels miraculous. They were on the verge of being declared dead for the season.

It is OK to be envious. What happened to the Padres wasn’t easy to do. Probably only three teams had the wherewithal to do what the Milwaukee Brewers did to the Friars.

But this will be one to stew over all winter and into spring or beyond, depending on when the lockout ends. The Padres rolled into the NL Division with a short deck of pitchers and it cost them.

The strength of the Padres all season was the area they fell short or underperformed throughout this series. The bullpen. It ended rather solemnly. A 3-1 loss gave the Brewers the requisite three wins in the best-of-five series. The Brewers have bigger dreams than just advancing out of the Division Series, which would have been a huge accomplishment for this Padres team that was at one point 50-53, then sprinted home and earned the top NL wild-card spot.

A full-throated crowd of 47,712, four more than the day before that was the third-highest gathering of the Friar Faithful in Petco Park history, was there from the first pitch to give the Padres every extra ounce of energy the players would need. It almost worked. Just ask Manny Machado, who saw a potential tying two-run homer in the eighth robbed by center fielder Garrett Mitchell.

Yes, the players on the field Wednesday lost this game. It was another fierce battle with a Brewers team that has put up the best record in MLB each of the last two regular seasons. But it was how the Padres approached their bullpen in the first three games that left them in this situation. Yes, you want to have your best pitch in the biggest situations, but there were other avenues to take to get there.

It was the decision of president of baseball operations A.J. Preller and manager Craig Stammen to go with only 11 pitchers on their postseason roster for the Division Series, just like they did for the Wild Card Series against the Chicago Cubs. It was the same 11. Three pitchers—Walker Buehler, Robbie Ray and David Morgan—didn’t see action in the two games from the first round. Two pitchers had yet to see action entering Game 4 vs. the Brewers. They were Morgan and Joe Musgrove.

Even the two pitchers who were on the roster for a combined three games due to Buehler and Mason Miller being away from the team as their wives gave birth didn’t set foot on the mound. One of those was Randy Vasquez, who was surprisingly left off the Division Series roster.

The desperation set in during the sixth inning. Miller, the superstar closer, warmed up in the sixth inning. That is because manager Craig Stammen was burning through relievers like a 7-year-old devours candy bars at Halloween. After four combined innings from Buehler and Ray, the oft-used Bradgley Rodriguez and Yuki Matsui combined for just three outs. Jason Adam got the Padres through the sixth, but he allowed a run.

The Miller plan backfired, though not as bad as it could have. The Brewers, as they do, made Miller work. Facing the top of the order, Miller got two quick outs, then yielded two singles and a walk before getting a lineout to center on his 20th pitch to end the inning.

Miller went just the one inning before sitting and watching the final two innings of the season. Then it was Joe Musgrove, who made his triumphant return for the final inning of the Wild Card Series. He pitched the eighth and ninth, a feel-good story after missing all the time he did. While the game was still tight, it also had a feel of mopup duty because the offense couldn’t solve the Brewers’ rested bullpen. They carried 13 relievers.

With 11 pitchers, Rodriguez and Matsui, two of the Padres' top five relievers, wound up being the early firemen. They appeared in all four games. Morejon’s shoulder injury, sustained when he went two innings in Game 1, left only 10 available arms for Games 2, 3 and 4. He warmed up in the ninth, but didn't come in. If he was truly available, he would have been in sooner. Jason Adam pitched in three and perhaps it should have been four as he wasn’t used in Game 2.

Was leaving Vasquez off the roster worth the extra bat? Austin Hays got more plate appearances than you would have thought with Miguel Andujar and Gavin Sheets on the roster. Sheets, though, was scratched from the Game 3 lineup with a stiff neck after missing most of September with an injured left foot.

Vasquez gave the team important innings throughout the season, starting and relieving, and took a bullet for the team by pitching six innings in the regular-season finale. Preller and Stammen said he would be on the Division Series roster. But he wasn’t. Sure could have used him.

For Stammen, a first-year manager who did a superb job of keeping what at one point felt like a sinking ship afloat, it was certainly a learning experience. Who swayed the decision to go with 11 instead of 12 pitchers? Preller should have known better that an extra arm or two would prove valuable.

There were better decisions to be made that would have alleviated the issues that forced the Padres into their Game 4 plan. But that is tough to do when you didn't have the trust in the unit you trusted all season.

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