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Buster Olney, ESPN Senior Writer
SAN DIEGO — The latest stop of the San Diego Padres‘ redemption tour led them into a layer of champagne and beer Wednesday night, after they dispatched the Atlanta Braves with a 5-4 win to complete a two-game sweep in their NL Wild Card Series.
The floor of the Padres’ clubhouse was covered in a sheen of alcohol, and underneath a thump of salsa music, Luis Arraez stood amid a circle of teammates and danced. When he was finished, Fernando Tatis Jr. stepped in and took a turn, and they kept it going like this for a while.
A year ago, the Padres were regarded as the most disappointing team in baseball, a working model of clubhouse dysfunction. Now, after a makeover of culture and personnel, they will face the Dodgers, baseball’s No. 1 seed in this postseason. That best-of-five series will start in Los Angeles, and between the massive Dodger Stadium crowds and the parties that the Padres engender at Petco Park, it could draw a quarter-million fans in person and many millions in the broadcasts.
“We fought tooth and nail to get to the end of the season, for the division. But now we’re in the part of the season where winner moves on and we wouldn’t want it any other way,” Padres manager Mike Shildt said. “It’s going to be a wonderful series. We’re super excited about it. Can’t wait.”
Right after the San Diego players sprawled on the mound here for a team picture, third baseman Manny Machado said, “This is what everybody wanted.”
Maybe not everybody. It’s hard to imagine that anyone would openly wish for a series against the Padres, who have played better than just about any team since the All-Star break: 45 wins and 19 losses, including the two games against the Braves, a 113-win pace since the middle of July. Their lineup is deep, their rotation is deep and talented — although there is concern about Joe Musgrove, who had to depart the game Wednesday with elbow trouble — and their bullpen is as good as any, following the in-season additions of Tanner Scott, Jason Adam and others.
The Padres ambushed the Braves’ Max Fried, who was making what might turn out to be his last appearance in an Atlanta uniform. Tatis Jr. smashed a 99.8 mph line drive back to the mound, with the ball smashing into Fried’s backside and ricocheting away. Fried grimaced, and after a visit from manager Brian Snitker and an athletic trainer, he decided to continue. He then struck out Machado to help him pitch out of a bases-loaded jam.
But in the aftermath of Tatis’ line drive, Fried would tell reporters later his bruised buttocks tightened, and in the second inning, Fried’s command vanished. With two outs, Kyle Higashioka hit a solo homer, his second in two days, and after three consecutive singles, the bases were loaded for Machado again.
As Machado watched this rally build, he kept telling teammates in the dugout to give him another chance, to get him another opportunity — and when Fried left a slider over the plate, Machado blistered it into the left field corner for two runs. Merrill followed with a two-run triple, and it was 5-1 San Diego.
“That’s a band of brothers right there,” Merrill said. “First inning, we get bases loaded, no outs and we don’t score. But we don’t look back, we move forward. Six straight two-out hits! I don’t think that happens very often. That’s what you call a band of brothers, just working together trying to pack on the runs.”
Said Higashioka: “This team’s always shown the ability to be resilient and never quit. That’s a credit to all the guys. Just putting together good at-bats no matter what.”
For the Braves, who have been hammered all year by injuries and have been without Ronald Acuna Jr. for most of the season and without Austin Riley in recent weeks, this was a mountainous deficit. Fried was finished, and this game mirrored the Braves’ season in how it was defined by injury.
The Braves plated a few more runs, but lacking lineup firepower — after leading the majors in runs last year, they finished 15th this season — they would fall short. Travis d’Arnaud popped out to end the game, and the Padres rushed to the middle of the field.
Later, before the San Diego players flooded their clubhouse with champagne, Shildt and others spoke loudly about how this was just the first step, that they needed 11 more wins in this postseason.
Just before that, Machado had talked during and after the game about how this is a team that fights and pushes, which was not something that was said about the 2023 Padres, a star-laden club that just fell flat. Manager Bob Melvin left the Padres right after the regular season, jumping to the Giants. Juan Soto was traded to the New York Yankees in return for a clan of pitching and Higashioka. Shildt, who had been fired by the St. Louis Cardinals after the 2021 season and was uncertain about whether he would get another chance, was hired — and shortly thereafter, a conversation began between the new manager, staffers and players about how to make the work experience better for all of them.
As infielder Jake Cronenworth described it, the players wanted to get back to caring about each game, each bit of result and, perhaps most important, to get back to having fun. Shildt wanted the players to enjoy coming to work each day, and some adjustments were made with the schedule.
“I’m pleased with the way our guys are going about this postseason,” Shildt said after Wednesday’s game. “You’re just playing baseball, man. They’re not making it any bigger than it is. They’re just going out and playing and balling out.”
Along the way, Merrill emerged as the center fielder, at age 20. “A superstar,” Cronenworth said. “A freak.”
General manager A.J. Preller, long known for his aggressiveness, landed Dylan Cease from the White Sox in a spring training trade, and made the first big deal of the regular season, swapping for batting champion Arraez, who reinforced the team’s newfound dedication to making more contact and striking out less in their spacious park. Coach Victor Rodriguez termed it Petco Park hitting.
And at the deadline, Preller made more deals to stack the Padres’ bullpen. On Wednesday morning, a rival executive talked about filing a vote for Preller as executive of the year.
The pool of champagne and beer had already started to grow by the time Preller walked into the room. Shildt saw him, pulled his boss into a bear hug with his right hand and emptied a bottle over Preller’s head with his left hand, laughing.