Must Win
The spectacular failure of the Clevnaea experiment leads the Padres to a true must win scenario
It started as a dream, with the Padres offense scoring 4 runs to start the game. But the dream soon turned into a nightmare.
We’ve learned from Game 4 just how shallow our starting pitching depth is. In a (hopefully) long series, teams have to count on their weakest pitching links holding the line long enough for help to arrive. It is no secret that Mike Clevinger and Sean Manaea are the Padres weakest pitching links, and today they were about as bad as we all feared. Clevinger’s velocity was down and he appeared to be throwing batting practice to the Phillies. As a result, Clevinger could not record an out before Melvin was forced to pull the plug.
Nick Martinez was excellent and provided immediate relief, allowing the Padres to keep the lead, at least for a time. This led some Padres fans to question whether Martinez should’ve started the game. After all, Clevinger had been batting practice for the Dodgers, too, in the NLDS. Sean Manaea, making his Padres postseason debut, was better than Clevinger insofar as he at least got a few outs, but he too would get torched for 5 runs as the Phillies offense, like so many teams during the regular season, teed off on Manaea. Some of us quietly had wondered if it was a bad sign that, even though Clevinger was almost certain to ship several runs, the Padres still chose him to start over Manaea.
When Manaea was lifted, the two pitchers had combined to surrender 8 runs in just 1.1 innings of the pivotal Game 4. For those keeping track of such things, the twin disastrous outings left Clevinger with a 2022 postseason ERA of 23.63 and Manaea with a somehow much worse 33.75. The good news, if there is any, is that the Phillies will not get to see Clevinger or Manaea again until next season at the earliest.
The other good news is that the Padres managed to have a breakout offensively. As noted, the Padres jumped all over the Phillies starter, who also failed to get out of the first inning. Juan Soto hit his first postseason homerun for the Padres, which gave momentary hope that the Padres might pull this one out, but that hope was quickly dashed following Manaea’s BP session in the bottom of the inning. The Padres bullpen even got touched up a bit by homeruns from Kyle Schwarber and JT Realmuto. In the end, Padres pitching would surrender 10 earned runs.
There was plenty of bad luck involved involved in this game. The BABIP luck continued for the Phillies as a routine groundball up the middle off the bat of Nick Castellanos hit the second base bag and jumped over Jake Cronenworth who had been positioned perfectly. That allowed Bryce Harper, who had just delivered the knockout blow on Manaea, to score. Nothing to be done there. The Phillies luck in the postseason has been incomprehensible. The home plate umpire also made a critical call on Austin Nola, calling what should’ve been ball 4, a strike. Nola would ground out. This is significant because two batters later, Juan Soto hit a 2-run homerun. We cannot know if Nola getting a lead off walk with the game tied would’ve changed anything, but it didn’t help that he was robbed.
This loss hurts for many reasons. The Phillies burned almost all their good pitchers in Game 3 forcing the Phillies to hope they could squeeze a few innings out of a rookie starter ominously named Falter. It was almost a scheduled loss for the Phillies who could afford to take the punch with a 2-1 series advantage and Zack Wheeler ready to pitch game 5 before the home crowd. The Padres did what they needed to do offensively, scoring 6 runs, which normally would be enough for a team with dominant pitching to win the game. The Padres just needed Clevinger and Manaea to give them 4 not completely disastrous innings. Instead, the Padres got none. This is not a game worth dwelling on, so we won’t.
The Padres season is now truly on the line. A win tomorrow brings the series back to San Diego. That is now our best hope. We must take it one game at a time.
The term “Must win” is thrown around all the time, usually its use is spurious. Today was not a must win. Tomorrow is. If there is any team capable of winning 3 straight, including 2 at home, it’s the 2022 Padres. Now, more than ever, we have to keep the faith.