Padres fall to Brewers in National League Division Series, ending their season

The situation was dire at the start and desperate before too long.

And devastating at the end, as the Padres were left to watch the Brewers celebrate on their field.

A 3-1 loss in Game 4 of the National League Division Series on Wednesday night at Petco Park ended the Padres’ season, as their offense struggled to the finish and a parade of pitchers were unable to deny the relentless Brewers.

The wall against which they were up against so often and so proudly fought back from several times finally fell on the Padres.

As the Padres tried to chase the victory, closer Mason Miller entered in the seventh inning in an attempt to keep a deficit where it was.

It was not a save situation. It was an attempt to save the season from slipping away.

Miller left the bases loaded in the seventh, and Joe Musgrove got through the final two innings.

But the Padres’ final hit was a game-tying home run by Fernando Tatis Jr. leading off the third inning.

Their last gasp came in the eighth inning when Tatis led off with a walk before Jackson Merrill, Manny Machado and Ty France all made outs.

Machado at least gave his out a ride, sending a fly ball 406 feet to right-center field that center fielder Garrett Mitchell caught above the short wall in front of the party deck. That sent Machado walking back to the dugout with both hands on his head. After walking down the dugout steps, he repeatedly slammed his helmet against the bat rack.

For the series, the Padres hit .181 and scored 10 runs. It was a third consecutive year that the bats went limp in the postseason.

The Brewers outscored the Padres by just three runs. But that was plenty for them to move onto the NL Championship Series against the Dodgers, who completed their NLDS victory over the Braves.

The Brewers scored first Wednesday for the first time in the series, taking a 1-0 lead in the top of the third.

Tatis answered immediately when he sent a 1-2 fastball Brewers starting pitcher Robert Gasser left up and over the middle a projected 429 feet to center field.

But the Brewers retook the lead for good in the fifth inning and added a run in the sixth.

That ended a year that included 91 victories in the regular season and a two-game sweep of the Cubs in the NL Wild Card Series, and it would leave the long winter for them to be tortured by how close this series was to being theirs.

They had forced Wednesday’s game by winning 4-3 on Tuesday night in Game 3. It was the third game in the series decided by one run, and there were reasons aplenty to believe the Padres could have won the first two.

They stranded 12 runners in a 3-2 loss in Game 1, which they led 2-0 before the Brewers came back with a two-run homer by Jackson Chourio in the third inning and a solo homer by William Contreras in the seventh. Chourio’s bases-loaded single off Mason Miller with two outs in the ninth inning decided the Brewers’ 4-3 victory in Game 2.

All total, the Padres stranded 23 runners over the four games.

Padres starting pitcher Walker Buehler began Wednesday’s game juiced.

His first pitch was a 97.4 mph sinker, faster than any he had thrown all season. In a six-pitch inning, he topped 97 mph three times, once more than he did during the regular season.

Machado got the crowd as frenzied as it had been at any point in the four playoff games at Petco Park this postseason when he followed Merrill’s one-out single by beating out a perfect bunt to third base in the first inning.

But France’s grounder to the left side resulted in Merrill being forced at third, though it should have been a double play if not for the fact third baseman Joey Ortiz held the ball instead of throwing across the diamond.

And after Austin Hays drew a walk to load the bases, Xander Bogaerts popped out.

It was reminiscent of Game 1, when the Padres left the bases loaded twice, including after already scoring twice in the second inning and with a chance to get Jacob Misiorowski out of the game.

Buehler ran his postseason scoreless streak to 15 innings before the Brewers scored in the third when Sal Frelick led off the inning with a single, stole second base and scored easily on Mitchell’s single.

And, as Misiorowski had, Gasser used the reprieve well.

The Padres went down in order in the second and third before Tatis, who had one hit in his previous 19 at-bats, hit the longest home run by a Padres player in a postseason game at Petco Park.

Gasser went back to it after Tatis’ blast, however, retiring six batters of the final seven batters he faced to get through the fourth inning. The only interruption to that string was when shortstop Cooper Pratt booted a routine grounder hit by Luis Campusano with two outs in the fourth inning.

The Brewers, who were relentless throughout the series even if they did not score much more than the Padres, continued to pepper the basepaths.

They chased Buehler with a single to begin the fourth inning before Robbie Ray stranded two to end the inning.

Mitchell’s grounder sailed just over the outermost portion of first base and rolled to the corner in right field as he ran all the way to third base to start the fifth inning.

That ended Ray’s night, and Bradgley Rodriguez entered his fourth game of the series.

He got a groundout from Ortiz, which froze Mitchell, before Chourio lined a single up the middle to put the Brewers back on top.

A single by Yelich and a fly ball out from William Contreras was all that was asked of Rodriguez. Yuki Matsui got the final out of the inning.

After left-hander Aaron Ashby worked the first of his three scoreless innings, the Brewers upped their lead to 3-1 in the sixth against Jason Adam on a leadoff single by Jake Bauers, a double by Pratt that got over the left field wall on a hop and Frelick’s sacrifice fly.

The Padres’ last three times on base were via walks with one out in the sixth, two outs in the seventh and Tatis’ walk in the eighth.