Tom Krasovic: What to make of the Padres' most gut-wrenching playoff loss in decades

Tom Krasovic, The San Diego Union-Tribune on Oct 5, 2026

Published in Baseball

By clicking submit, I authorize Arcamax and its affiliates to: (1) use, sell, and share my information for marketing purposes, including cross-context behavioral advertising, as described in our Privacy Policy , (2) add to information that I provide with other information like interests inferred from web page views, or data lawfully obtained from data brokers, such as past purchase or location data, or publicly available data, (3) contact me or enable others to contact me by email or other means with offers for different types of goods and services, and (4) retain my information while I am engaging with marketing messages that I receive and for a reasonable amount of time thereafter. I understand I can opt out at any time through an email that I receive, or by clicking here

SAN DIEGO — Baseball karma arrived Saturday night for us smug San Diegans who tease friends or family back east about our glorious weather.

Payback came via Milwaukee’s roofed baseball park that was built to cope with Wisconsin’s less-forgiving climate.

Against astronomical odds, the roof denied Padres slugger/San Diego State alum Ty France a potential go-ahead home run in the ninth inning of Saturday’s playoff series opener.

France’s moonshot struck a roof cable that locals say had never been hit. The ball angled downward into the glove of Brewers left fielder Jackson Chourio on the warning track’s front edge, near the corner. It went for the second out, and when Jackson Merrill’s liner sailed into the right fielder’s glove, the Brewers and some 42,000 fans celebrated a 3-2 win in Game 1 in the best-of-five National League Division Series.

Sunday brought a fresh canvas:

A mid-afternoon time slot, an open roof, and a Padres ace on the mound.

Could the Padres dig themselves out of the karmic hole?

It appeared they would when France drove in a pair of runs and Michael King retired his first 14 batters, and the team took a 3-1 lead into the home seventh inning.

But they lost 4-3, giving the Padres much to ponder on the flight home for Game 3, which comes Tuesday.

This was the franchise’s most excruciating postseason defeat, except for the 1998 World Series opener at Yankee Stadium.

Despite holding a lead going into every Brewers at-bat, the Padres failed to even the series.

Offensively, the Padres underachieved for the second day in a row.

Because the offense failed to put up more runs on a day when the Brewers handed them four extra outs via three errors and a pitcher not covering first base, Padres manager Craig Stammen asked Mason Miller to get his second career six-out save and first one since since 2024, when the closer was with the Athletics.

Miller, who was on three days’ rest, threw a scoreless eighth to preserve the 3-2 lead.

He retired the first hitter of the ninth before going walk, flyout, walk, walk to bring up 22-year-old emerging star Chourio.

Miller still had a hot fastball, although his 34 pitches had matched his season high.

Chourio, signed out of Venezuela at age 16, is Milwaukee’s best fastball hitter and has evolved into a very good hitter, period. In Game 1, the righty pounded a 420-foot home run off a slider from lefty Robbie Ray.

“He’s starting to realize how he plays the game,” Brewers manager Pat Murphy said. “As talented as he is, he’s still learning the game.”

Miller began Chourio with four fastballs, each one hitting triple digits.

Chourio got off an ominous swing on the fourth one, a 1-2 pitch that he fouled back.

Miller answered with a nose-diving slider over the plate that, in many other duels, would’ve induced a flailing third strike.

Chourio let it pass under his knees.

When Miller brought another fastball — out over the plate, belt-high, clocked at 101.3-mph — Chourio hammered it to center field to win it, 4-3.

The big picture here:

Padres hitters aren’t producing enough clutch hits and productive outs. The same problem fueled similar close-game October defeats to the Phillies (2022), Dodgers (2024) and Cubs (2025).

Other than France’s two hits Sunday, the offense was 0 for 7 with runners in scoring position, seven players going hitless in their lone chance.

In Game 1, the offense stranded 12 runners and got only one hit — from Luis Campusano — in nine at-bats with runners in scoring position.

Many Machado has been OK. Supplementing France’s consistently good at-bats in the two games, Machado had a double, a single and a walk in Game 1 and two walks in Game 2, the first of which led to Machado scoring for a 1-0 lead on France’s sharp, two-out single off rookie Logan Henderson.

But it’s this simple: the Padres won’t get to the NLCS unless they get more production from Fernando Tatis Jr. and Merrill.

And it’s been a rough series for Jake Cronenworth, who had a double-error Sunday, leading to an unearned run that made it 3-2. He was hitless in four at-bats.

Contextualizing France’s roof-ball isn’t so simple.

After the quants dug into the flyball data, they said the 49-degree launched drive, if unimpeded, probably would not have gone for a home run. According to Statcast data, it would’ve been a home run only in Houston’s ballpark. An analyst with The Athletic, while not ruling out a home run, suggested a foul ball or flyout were the more probable outcomes.

So, maybe the Padres weren’t robbed by a confluence of improbable events that also included the roof being closed on a temperate, 61-degree night.

And in other years, maybe it wasn’t bad luck that dealt other Padres teams and San Diego Chargers clubs embittering defeats, the kind that lead fans to ask why they keep coming back for such punishment.

The Padres had plenty of chances to win the past two games. They didn’t get it done.

It’s on to the East Village, with sizzling-hot October weather in the forecast.

At least the Padres won’t have to worry about a roof.

____