The Key Hit Never Came: Breaking Down the Decisive NLDS Moments the Padres Couldn’t Capitalize On

[Yirsandy Rodríguez]

It was another disappointing finish for the San Diego Padres, but we also have to recognize that they were eliminated by the best team in baseball throughout the entire season: the Milwaukee Brewers. Everything came down to a four-game series dominated by pitching from start to finish. No winning team scored more than four runs and, with the exception of Game 4, every game ended by a one-run margin.

So, the opportunity to turn the series around was there the entire time. The Padres recorded 145 plate appearances and, in 41.3% of them, their hitters came to the plate with the score tied or trailing by just one run. Unfortunately, the Friars were only able to change the score in three of the 19 occasions when it had runners in scoring position. In the end, the key hit didn’t come in most of those opportunities and, in two of them, the baseball gods were not on their side.

Before the postseason, I set out to investigate what kind of shape most of San Diego’s starting hitters were in when they arrived at the playoffs. In several cases, they entered the postseason in the best form of their season; in others, they simply never found their best version. Here, I take a look at some of the moments that defined each hitter before and during the postseason.

Austin Hays

His out-of-zone contact rate fell from 55% in September to 33.3% in the postseason, which led to an increase in his strikeout rate from 22.6% to 30%. Hays had a good pinch-hit at-bat for Jake Cronenworth in the top of the eighth inning of Game 1, when he hit a fly ball against left-hander DL Hall with runners on first and second and one out. Samad Taylor took advantage and advanced to third, but Fernando Tatis Jr. then struck out against Trevor Megill.

Dustin Harris

Despite recording just a .188 xwOBA in the NLDS, Harris made an interesting adjustment by lowering his swing rate on pitches outside the zone from 32.5% to 15.8%. At the same time, however, his contact rate fell from 65.3% to 50%. On the other hand, his decline in production also coincided with a drop in his BABIP, which went from a surprising .328 in the final month of the regular season to just .200 in the NLDS.

Ethan Salas

His talent is undeniable, but his .737 OPS in September fell to .325 over his 10 postseason plate appearances. He also finished with a 37.5% strikeout rate, the highest of anyone on the roster.

Fernando Tatis Jr.

Before reaching the postseason, Tatis was going through one of the best stretches of his entire campaign, so it was inevitable that expectations would be high. He hit .337/.413/.652, with a 1.066 OPS and 193 wRC+ in September, but then fell to .167/.231/.417 and 78 wRC+ in the postseason.

In 17 of his 18 plate appearances against the Brewers, Tatis came to the plate with the score close. He finished 1-for-7 with two strikeouts in tied-game situations, including both of his leadoff at-bats. His only two productive plate appearances were the RBI groundout against Dustin May that gave the Padres a 1-0 lead in the third inning of Game 3, and the home run against Robert Gasser that tied Game 4 in the third inning.

Gavin Sheets

He won’t only be remembered for striking out for the final out of the NLDS against Trevor Megill’s knuckle curveball, but also because he had fallen into a terrible slump in September for the second consecutive year. In 2025, he finished with a 61 wRC+; this year, his OPS fell to just .333 and his wRC+ to -10.

Jackson Merrill

He's arrived to the playoffs in peak form in recent years, with 156 and 152 wRC+ marks in September 2025 and 2026, respectively. But this time, he couldn’t shine and was limited to a .176/.176/.176 line against the Brewers.

Game 1 was his biggest test, when he had three key opportunities against Aaron Ashby, DL Hall and Trevor Megill in the fifth, seventh and ninth innings, respectively. All three came with two outs. Against Ashby, he failed with a fly ball to center field, with runners on second and third and the game tied 2-2. He then faced Hall with the bases loaded and failed again with a fly ball to left field against a cutter high and away. Later, in the ninth, he hit a line-drive out to right field against a 99 mph fastball from Megill for the final out of the game.

He finished 1-for-7 against Milwaukee’s group of left-handed relievers: Ashby, Hall, and JoJo Romero.

Jake Cronenworth

After struggling for much of the first half of the season and spending time on the injured list, Cronenworth recorded a 119 wRC+ in July. He then fell to 75 in August, but adjusted his swing again in September, when he posted a .418 slugging percentage, his highest in any month of the entire season.

However, he became anxious at the plate again, and his swing rate on pitches outside the zone rose from 26.4% to 39.3%. The only two hits he recorded in the NLDS came against left-handed pitchers: a single against DL Hall and the solo home run on the first pitch of the fifth inning in Game 3 against JoJo Romero, which turned out to be one of the key hits that allowed the Padres to avoid the sweep. That home run was the hit that added the most win probability for the Padres (0.14) from a batter in the entire NLDS.

Manny Machado

It’s inevitable to mention one of the hits that could have changed the course of the postseason for the Padres. When Machado hit that deep fly ball to center field in Game 4 and Garrett Mitchell caught it, it felt as if the game had ended right there. No matter how much Padres fans tried not to lose hope, the team couldn’t recover, and that colossal catch by Mitchell was the final attempt at a comeback.

If there was one key to the Brewers’ pitching, it was preventing Machado from finding runners on base frequently. In nine of his 17 plate appearances, he found the bases empty, and he finished 1-for-6, with three walks and a double in those at-bats. He went 1-for-2 with runners in scoring position (RISP), and the only run he drove in came on a single against Dustin May in the third inning of Game 3.

Luis Campusano

Do you remember his 156 wRC+ in July? That version of Campusano didn’t make it past August, when he recorded a 112 wRC+. In September and October 2026, he hit .215/.292/.369, with an 88 wRC+ in 72 plate appearances. Although he improved his OBP to .357 over his 14 postseason plate appearances, his contact rate against pitches in the zone fell considerably, from 83.9% to 70.6%.

That regression mattered, since Campusano had runners on base in five of his 10 at-bats against the Brewers in the NLDS. His big at-bat will be remembered: in the second inning of Game 1, he hit a single against a cutter from Jacob Misiorowski that came right down the middle of the zone, putting the Padres ahead 1-0. However, he didn’t drive in another run in his remaining nine plate appearances. In each of them, he had the chance to change the score, since he always came to the plate with the game tied or with a one-run difference, whether the Padres were ahead or behind.

Samad Taylor

Contact ability, one of the elements that drove Taylor’s at-bats for much of the year, suffered its biggest regression in the postseason: his out-of-zone swing rate increased from 30.6% to 46.7%. He didn’t draw any walks, and his strikeout rate jumped from 21.1% to 40%. Yes, I haven’t forgotten his reaction when he struck out looking at Ashby’s curveball for the third out of the seventh inning in Game 4.

Ty France

All of his months were solid, featuring at least a 123 wRC+, and he finished September with an impressive 140 mark. His bat made a difference for the Padres, and it’s very likely that he will receive a contract offer, since he will be a free agent in a matter of weeks.

In any case, people will talk for a long time about the fly ball he hit off the roof of American Family Field in Game 1. Statcast projected it as a potential home run in one of the 30 ballparks, with a chance to become a home run only at Daikin Park. From Game 2 onward, France finished 2-for-10 and drove in just one run.

Xander Bogaerts

You may find it surprising, but Bogaerts hit only two balls that clearly got past the infield against the Brewers. Both were line drives: a single against Antonio Senzatela, with the bases empty and two outs in the sixth inning of Game 3, and a line-drive out to right field against Robert Gasser.

Bogaerts had finished the Wild Card Series against the Chicago Cubs 4-for-8, with a double, a home run and two RBIs, but the Brewers limited him to a puzzling .154/.267/.154 slash line, with just a 32 wRC+ in 15 plate appearances.

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