The Padres head into Tuesday night’s elimination game against Milwaukee with more than just their offense under the microscope. After Mason Miller was tagged for two runs in Sunday’s 4-3 Game 2 loss, there’s now a lingering question about whether the closer was tipping pitches.
That possibility has surfaced in reporting from Alden Gonzalez of ESPN and AJ Cassavell and Adam McCalvy of MLB.com. Miller’s outing was a rare blown save in the ninth, and while the walks did plenty of damage - he issued three free passes - the final matchup with Jackson Chourio raised eyebrows. On one 1-2 slider that stayed just below the zone, Chourio appeared to be sitting on the pitch.
Miller called it a “really close take,” and he said he’s studied the video and still images circulating online. He’s also seen material that isn’t publicly available. If he believed he was tipping, he said he wouldn’t talk about it, but he also pushed back on the idea that he “just magically started doing it.”
There is at least some support for Miller’s side of the story. He worked cleanly through the eighth inning of his two-inning save attempt without allowing a hit, which suggests the issue may not be constant. The more plausible explanation, as the reporting notes, is that the problem shows up when fatigue sets in during the second inning of a multi-inning outing and the sharpness starts to slip.
Stammen pointed to that as a possibility in his comments and suggested the Padres may need to make some strategic changes moving forward.
Even so, the biggest issue for San Diego may be much simpler: the bats have to wake up. A big offensive night would change the mood in a hurry and force Milwaukee onto the back foot.
Instead, the Brewers have dictated the terms of the series. The Padres jumped out to early leads in both weekend games, only to let them go without adding on.
Milwaukee has kept pressure on with its small-ball approach, and it felt like only a matter of time before someone on San Diego’s side broke. That it happened to Miller only sharpened the focus.
The Padres have managed to hang with a Brewers team that won 103 games in the regular season, but they still haven’t landed the knockout punch. If they miss again Tuesday, the offseason conversation will include pitch-tipping questions and a whole lot of what-ifs.
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