Mason Miller’s Sunday line will go down as one of those ugly little baseball moments that can make a closer look cursed, even when the whole thing starts with bad luck.
The Padres brought Miller into the ninth with a 3-1 lead over the Rays, and he looked on track to finish the job after a single to Junior Caminero, a strikeout of Liam Hicks and a flyout from Chandler Simpson. Then Jonny DeLuca stepped in, and everything got strange.
Miller jumped ahead 0-1 with a slider up in the zone, then came back with another one. This time it leaked to the inside part of the plate. DeLuca lifted it toward left field, where Padres outfielder Samad Taylor appeared to have the final out lined up.
Instead, the ball went from glove to wall to over the fence.
Taylor caught it, collided with the wall, and the ball popped out of his glove and cleared the barrier for a game-tying home run. The whole thing looked like a scene out of Rookie of the Year, and the reaction practically wrote itself: “Is that play legal?”
The Rays tied it there and later finished off a 5-4 win in extra innings.
Miller had the bad break on his side, but the contact itself was also as favorable as it gets for a pitcher. The ball left DeLuca’s bat at 90 mph with a 40-degree launch angle.
Since Statcast tracking started in 2015, there had been 43 other batted balls with that exact profile, and none of them had become hits, much less homers. This one did, with a little help from Taylor’s glove.
Its expected batting average was .010.
For Miller, it was his second blown save in 34 chances, and it pushed his ERA above 1.00 for the first time since July 4.
Sunday probably shouldn’t be dismissed as a simply awful outing, though. Miller did leave the slider up to DeLuca, but the play behind him turned a routine out into a disaster. Still, the last few days have raised a real question about how San Diego is using him.
Before last Tuesday, Miller had gone 73 appearances without allowing a home run. He has now given up one in back-to-back outings. On August 25, he left a 98 mph changeup in the zone to Oneil Cruz, who hammered it 111.8 mph over the right field fence for a go-ahead solo shot in Pittsburgh’s 1-0 win.
That was Miller’s first homer allowed since Aug. 5, 2025.
Then came Sunday, when DeLuca got him, sort of.
The bigger concern is the workload. Miller’s ERA has jumped from 0.81 to 1.26 in the past week, and there are signs his recent usage may be catching up with him.
Against the Pirates, he was pitching in his fourth outing in five days. His fastball reached 101 mph in that game, just below his season average of 101.5 mph.
The night before, he worked through a 30-pitch inning, allowed a walk, and threw only 18 strikes. That was a far cry from the efficiency he had shown for most of the season.
Now the 28-year-old closer has 57 1/3 innings under his belt with a month left. He is set to blow past the 61 2/3 innings he threw in 2025 and will almost certainly top the career-high 65 innings he logged in 2024. He’s also at 55 appearances, closing in on the career-best 60 from last season.
Miller came up as a starter, so he has handled volume before. But even that background has limits: his most innings in any season came at Gardner-Webb in 2021, when he threw 92 2/3 in his draft year.
With the Padres still in the wild card chase, how his stuff holds up the rest of the way is going to be worth watching.
In Other News...
Padres Just Lost Their Place In MLB Ownership History
For a stretch, the Padres could point to their place in the state rivalry and the broader business of baseball as one of the more notable franchises in Southern California. Now the record book has shifted again, with the Angels set to be sold to Stan Kroenkes Kroenke Sports & Entertainment for $4 billion, a valuation that resets the high-water mark for an MLB franchise sale. The deal, expected to close in 2027, adds another major piece to Kroenkes growing sports portfolio.
For San Diego, the headline is less about the Angels than the changing economics around the sport. The Padres have spent recent years navigating an increasingly competitive landscape in which ownership clout matters almost as much as payroll, and a new benchmark this large only underlines how much the industry has changed. Kroenke already controls several pro teams across different leagues, and this latest move only deepens the sense that baseballs power structure is becoming even more concentrated. [Read more 🡒]
Padres Suddenly Have 2 Surprise Award Cases In The Stretch Run
The late-season stretch has given the Padres something they did not necessarily have circled back in spring: a pair of award cases that are starting to gain real traction. MLB insider Jim Bowden of The Athletic projects Mason Miller to take home the National League Relief Pitcher of the Year Award, pointing to a dominant run in the back end of San Diegos bullpen. Miller has paired a 1.26 ERA across 55 appearances with 32 saves, production that has made him one of the defining arms in the leagues final months.
There is also a quieter but potentially bigger storyline around Craig Stammen, who is in his first year managing the Padres and has helped steer the club into playoff position. Bowdens prediction has Stammen as the National League Manager of the Year, a nod to how the team has stayed in the race under his watch. Both projections still depend on San Diego finishing strong, which leaves the Padres with more than one reason to pay close attention to the final weeks. [Read more 🡒]
Fernando Tatis Jr. Is Suddenly Carrying The Padres When It Matters Most
Fernando Tatis Jr. has turned August into a reminder of why the Padres still view him as the face of their lineup. After an uneven first four months, he caught fire with nine home runs and a .901 OPS over 27 games, giving San Diego a much-needed lift as the calendar has tightened and the race has gotten more serious.
The timing could hardly be better for a club trying to hang onto a small lead over the Arizona Diamondbacks for the National Leagues third Wild Card spot. Tatis had only eight homers through the end of July, which made the turnaround even more important for a Padres offense that needed someone to take charge when the pressure started to build. [Read more 🡒]