Josh Hader and the Padres Pitch Their Way to a 2–1 Lead, 2–1

Imagine that you were running the Padres, and a genie appeared on July 15. The genie told you you’d carry a one-run lead into the ninth inning of Game 3 in an NLDS clash with the Dodgers. Knowing that, what would you do for the next two weeks? Scramble to the ends of the earth to find the best closer available, that’s what.

Josh Hader stepped to the mound in the top of the ninth inning on Friday night with a one-run lead. He’s been one of the very best relievers in baseball since the first day he stepped on a major league mound. No one has thrown more relief innings since 2017 with a lower ERA. Only 12 relievers have thrown more innings, period. He’s been both durable and dominant — and crucially, available in trade.

Since joining the Padres, Hader has been anything but automatic. There’s reason to wonder whether he’s still a member of that top relief tier; his strikeout rate has plummeted and his walk rate has increased, never a welcome sign for a fastball-dominant reliever. But he’s still Josh Hader, and he put up a vintage Hader month in September. As bullpen toppers go, he’s one of the best. He’d have to be, facing the smallest possible lead against the scariest possible opponent, and in the pressure cooker of the playoffs to boot.

How did the Padres get to this situation that A.J. Preller perfectly outfitted the team for? It’s a long story, and one that wasn’t preordained. If a few early breaks had gone a different way, the Padres might have led by five. They might have trailed. That’s an inevitable fact of baseball. The margins are so slim, the teams so evenly matched from night to night, that no outcome is inevitable.

Imagine if I told you, before the game, that Tony Gonsolin would last only four outs, and surrender five baserunners in that time. You’d expect a long night for the Los Angeles bullpen, a parade of relievers facing the pitch-chewing San Diego lineup. Surely the Dodgers would struggle to hold things together. In Game 2, the bullpen gave up two runs in four innings, and they had nearly double that amount to cover tonight.

Naturally, Los Angeles’ bullpen was spectacular. Andrew Heaney came in as an emergency replacement, down 1–0, and held the line. He lasted three eventful innings, bending but mostly not breaking. He was in the game to survive, not to thrive, and he did just that. He couldn’t locate; he struggled to spot his slider in the zone, and when he missed the zone, the Padres kept their bats on their shoulders. He was forced to throw fastballs in the strike zone, because what else can you do against a team that thrives on waiting you out? That went the way you’d expect: lots of swings, lots of extended counts. He nearly escaped unscathed, but Trent Grisham tattooed a center-cut fastball for a mammoth home run that stretched San Diego’s lead to 2–0.

The cavalcade of following Dodgers — Yency Almonte, Alex Vesia, Evan Phillips, and Tommy Kahnle — squeezed the life out of the San Diego attack. They didn’t allow a hit, with the only scoring threat coming after Vesia walked two in the sixth. This was zero-margin stuff, pitching against Juan Soto and Manny Machado when the only acceptable number of runs allowed was zero, and they managed it. So no, if I told you Gonsolin left after just over an inning, you wouldn’t have been able to picture this game.

Imagine instead that I told you, before the game, that Bob Melvin would push Blake Snell and live to regret it. You might expect just the kind of outing Snell had. He was fine with his fastball command, dotting edges or missing by miniscule amounts. His breaking balls featured trademark hellacious spin but got poor results. He couldn’t find the zone with his slider, and the Dodgers didn’t chase excessively. The result? Hard-fought counts often ended with precision fastballs, and a rapidly climbing pitch count.

By the sixth, Snell was at the end of his rope. The feeling was palpable; a few batters more, perhaps one or even none, was all he had left in the tank. He’d been brilliant but profligate, laboring to his utmost to contain the fearsome Los Angeles offense. With one out, Max Muncy stepped to the plate. This, surely, was a safe harbor for Snell. Muncy had looked helpless earlier in the game against him, taking a middle-middle fastball for strike three after flailing at two previous fastballs. The left-left matchup led Melvin to give his starter just one more batter, hoping to squeeze out a few extra outs and perhaps flip Snell’s postseason story.

Muncy laced a line drive double, and with a mere one-run lead, the Padres didn’t take any chances, replacing Snell with Nick Martinez. That could have been it: that one extra batter that turns the tide of the game and flips victory to defeat. But Martinez retired the last two batters of the inning with no problem. Melvin gambled on a bit more length from Snell and lost the bet… and it didn’t change the outcome of the game at all.

If I told you Snell had been stretched past his limit, you’d expect some disaster, but like the Los Angeles bullpen, San Diego’s unit was up to the task through eight innings. Martinez was perfect. Luis García was as well. Robert Suarez surrendered a single but stranded the dangerous Trea Turner at first. Again, you might have expected fireworks, but the Padres held the Dodgers to a solitary run through eight.

The teams’ tandem pitching performances obscured some early bright spots at the bottom of both lineups. Grisham homered and went 2–4; Austin Nola was 2–3 with a walk. That’s king-sized production out of your bottom two hitters. LA did quite well there too; through eight, Trayce Thompson was 1–2 with a walk, and Austin Barnes went 2–2 before leaving in favor of a pinch-hitter.

Even at the top of the lineup, offense peeked through. Soto scored the first run of the game after a smashed double and hit two other balls right on the nose, though both died at the warning track. Machado walked three times. The Padres made plenty of noise, but they couldn’t break through or get the ball out of the park after Grisham’s blast; two runs was all they could manage.

That brings us back to the ninth, and back to the closer that the Padres brought in for exactly this situation. Hader had to get three outs to give his team a 2–1 edge in the series and bring the upstart squad to within a win of knocking off the division titans, the big kids on the block who had drubbed San Diego 14–5 in their season series this year.

If you were trying to figure out which closer to acquire for October in July, you would likely have emulated Preller and picked Hader. Forget what’s happened since then; on Friday, you would have been right. Hader was at his bullying best. His fastball levitated; his slider vanished below it. Justin Turner fell behind 0–2 before popping out harmlessly. Chris Taylor waved under two fastballs before flailing over a 2–2 changeup (note: a few people have told me this pitch was a changeup, and I thought it was too when watching, but pitch classification systems think it was a slider. I’m skeptical, so with some other people chiming in in agreement I’ve changed the copy to say changeup). Thompson waited out some tough high fastballs, but when the rubber hit the road on 3–2, Hader blew a decisive heater past him in the zone. For a night, it was like nothing had ever changed; Hader was his usual untouchable self.

You can’t always see the future like this. Plenty of the factors you think will matter won’t. Plenty of things you don’t expect: Grisham riding a postseason power surge or Heaney gritting through a solid outing that started much earlier than he could have foreseen. But at the end of the day, outfitting your team for as many eventualities as possible sometimes pays off. Preller didn’t know the Padres would end up in this situation, needing a scoreless inning in the worst way. But he built the team for that just the same, and in Game 3 it paid off. The Padres can vanquish the Dodgers on Saturday, because on Friday they had the goods to beat them.