The Padres had Mason Miller right where they wanted him, or so it seemed.
One inning away from a split in the NLDS, they handed the ball to their hard-throwing closer with a 3-2 lead and asked him to finish the job. Instead, Milwaukee turned the night on its head, and Jackson Chourio’s two-run single sent the Brewers to a 4-3 win and a 2-0 series lead.
Miller was asked for the final six outs. He got five. That one missing out now looms over San Diego after a Game 2 collapse that left the Padres staring at a steep climb.
The raw line told the story fast enough: three walks, two earned runs and just 21 strikes in 40 pitches. By the end, the right-hander looked spent, and the strike zone had clearly gone missing.
Craig Stammen’s decision to bring Miller in for the ninth wasn’t the problem. In October, managers lean on their best arms, and with a one-run lead, the Padres wanted their most overpowering reliever protecting it.
The issue came when the command never returned.
Stammen watched Miller lose the zone in real time, and the warning signs were impossible to miss. Three walks in one inning usually mean the pitcher has lost his edge, and Chourio made sure San Diego didn’t get a second chance to recover. His two-run single flipped the game and turned an aggressive bullpen move into the night’s defining mistake.
Miller still owns plenty of the blame. He’s the closer, and in the biggest outing of his Padres career, he threw 19 balls. Three free passes in the ninth are too many, no matter how electric the arm or how bright the moment.
But the Padres also had other paths available once the inning started unraveling. Adrián Morejón had worked two innings the night before, so using him again was a stretch.
Stammen could have turned to Jason Adam or David Morgan in the eighth and saved Miller for the ninth. Instead, he asked Miller to cover six outs.
That gamble made sense for a while. Milwaukee grinds through at-bats.
Miller had not pitched in Game 1. And with Monday’s off day, there was no need to save him for Tuesday’s Game 3 at Petco Park.
Using him in the eighth was bold but reasonable. Putting him back out there for the ninth was defensible, too.
Keeping him in after the walks piled up was where it slipped away.
The Padres built a deep bullpen for exactly this reason: so one reliever wouldn’t have to carry the whole burden alone. Once Miller stopped finding the zone, the club still had options. Stammen just didn’t go to them until Milwaukee forced the issue.
None of that lets the offense off the hook, either.
San Diego managed only five hits and three runs despite two Brewers errors. A bigger lead could have changed everything about the late-inning plan, but the Padres never created one. That left Miller with no cushion when the command vanished.
Now the Padres need three straight wins to stay alive. They’ll get the next two at Petco Park, but a comeback still would require a return trip to Milwaukee for Game 5. There’s no margin left for another quiet night at the plate or another bullpen decision that comes a batter too late.
In Other News...
Padres Explain Late Mason Miller Call After Crushing Game 2 Collapse
The Padres Game 2 loss in Milwaukee left them staring at an 0-2 hole in the National League Division Series, and the way it unraveled only deepened the sting. San Diego had turned to Mason Miller for six outs in a high-leverage spot, trusting the closer to help lock down the game, but the plan fell apart in the ninth when his command slipped and the Brewers kept pressing until Jackson Chourio delivered a walk-off two-run single.
Afterward, manager Craig Stammen and Miller both addressed the late call to extend him beyond the usual closer usage, a decision that now looms over a crushing collapse. For a Padres team that needed one clean finish to even the series, the choice to ride Miller that long became part of the postgame conversation, with the result leaving San Diego to answer not just for the loss, but for how it got there. [Read more 🡒]
Brewers Just Got A New NLDS Concern As Series Shifts Home
As the National League Division Series shifts to San Diego for Game 3, the Padres added another experienced arm to the mix by reinstating right-hander Walker Buehler from the paternity list. To make room, Randy Vasquez was taken off the roster, a move that reflects how tightly San Diego is managing its pitching staff as the series changes venues and the leverage starts to climb.
Buehler is expected to matter if the matchup goes beyond Game 3, which gives the Padres a little more flexibility in how they piece together the back half of the series. For a club trying to control every pitching decision in October, getting him back into the active roster only adds to the questions Milwaukee now has to account for as the series moves forward. [Read more 🡒]
Padres Head Home With Their Season Suddenly On The Brink
The Padres head back to San Diego with the kind of urgency October tends to create and no room for another misstep. In Game 2 of the National League Division Series, their usual formula of Michael King working the opener and Mason Miller finishing the job did not hold up, and a 4-3 walkoff loss to the Brewers turned a manageable road split into a steep playoff climb.
Now down 2-0 in the best-of-five series, San Diego has to sweep three straight at home just to keep its season going. The bullpen plan that had become a defining piece of the Padres October identity is suddenly under the microscope, and the next few days at Petco Park will decide whether this team gets a chance to extend its run or watches the postseason slip away. [Read more 🡒]