And Petco Park sure looks ready for October.
With a 5-1 victory over the Dodgers on Saturday night, San Diego moved ahead of Los Angeles into the top spot in the division. Sunday’s series finale is the lone remaining regular-season game between the two rivals this season. (Emphasis on “regular season.”)
A week ago, the Padres left Dodger Stadium having been swept, their prospects of a first division title since 2006 teetering. But after winning three of four against the Giants, they’ve beaten L.A. twice this weekend before raucous crowds at Petco Park.
“We kind of got punched in the mouth,” said left-hander Nestor Cortes. “We regrouped and had a good series against San Fran. Now, we came back and won this series. These guys are resilient.”
Acquired from the Brewers at the Trade Deadline, Cortes lived up to his nickname on Saturday; he was Nasty. The veteran left-hander retired the first 16 Dodgers he faced and worked six scoreless innings of one-hit ball.
Cortes’ effort came a day after Yu Darvish limited L.A. to one hit over six innings. All season long, only one other starting pitcher (Sonny Gray) had held the Dodgers to one hit across at least six innings. Padres starters did so on consecutive nights.
“We’re still getting to know him,” Padres manager Mike Shildt said of Cortes. “It just feels like once he gets in a rhythm, it’s really good. He got in a rhythm right from the very first batter, just carried it through. That was a fantastic effort.”
The Padres’ offense gave Cortes some breathing room with a three-run fourth inning. Ryan O’Hearn broke through with the Padres’ first hit against Dodgers starter Tyler Glasnow, sparking the rally. Ramón Laureano drove in two runs with a single, and Jake Cronenworth added another with a sacrifice fly.
O’Hearn and Laureano, of course, were acquired together from Baltimore at the Trade Deadline. It was one of five trades involving 22 players the Padres made on Deadline day — moves they made with nights like this one in mind.
“Obviously, the biggest tip of the hat to the players,” Shildt said. “Tip of the hat to [general manager] A.J. [Preller] for acquiring them. Tip of the hat to the clubhouse and staff for acclimating. Because that transition was really done well. … These guys came in, and they’ve just absolutely embraced what we’re about. Just great fits.”
Of course, if last weekend’s Dodgers sweep wasn’t the end of the division race, the same will hold true for this weekend’s series at Petco Park, whatever happens in Sunday’s finale. Still, as August games go, Sunday’s is as big as they get.
The Dodgers have wrapped up the season-series tiebreaker, so they would move into first place with a win. The Padres, meanwhile, could move two games clear for the first time since they started the season 14-3. They have the Majors’ easiest remaining strength of schedule.
A win on Sunday would be a serious statement. And, somehow, the Padres have a relatively fresh bullpen for it. That’s true, despite the fact that they’ve used exclusively high-leverage relief arms over the last three days.
Because the Padres have five bona fide high-leverage weapons, they can deploy, say, three per night, while keeping two in reserve. (It also helps that their starters have given them plenty of length on their current five-game winning streak.)
“We all want to be out there every single night,” said All-Star setup man Jason Adam, “but down the stretch, that’s going to be huge — one of us won’t have to pitch. We’ll always have one or two guys available.”
On Saturday, Robert Suarez and Mason Miller were unavailable, leaving Adam, Jeremiah Estrada and Adrian Morejon to nail it down instead. Morejon entered in the eighth and picked up the first four-out save of his career.
He did so with another sold-out Petco Park crowd on its feet for the final three outs, waving gold rally towels, amid chants of “Beat L.A.” Quite the environment for just any pitcher — let alone Morejon, whose tenure in the Padres organization spans nine-plus years, with all manner of ups and downs.
“This is a great ballpark; we have these great fans,” Morejon said through interpreter Pedro Gutiérrez. “I’ve been here a really long time. So definitely I’m happy to be in this scenario right now, where things are clicking.”
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