Padres walk off in 10th to cap comeback with 'great September baseball' 

SAN DIEGO -- Jackson Merrill’s towering fly ball into Petco Park’s right-center-field gap hung in the air for only about five seconds. Felt like forever.

Collectively, Petco Park held its breath. With two outs, both runners sped around the bases. As did Merrill. Finally, after a short eternity, the baseball landed. It caromed off the glove of Reds center fielder TJ Friedl after his desperate dive just in front of the warning track.

The ballpark erupted. Both runners scored. Merrill sped into third base and flexed. It was only the sixth inning. But the Padres had a fully rested bullpen and the momentum of a frenzied crowd on their side after they rallied from a three-run deficit.

“We were going to win this game,” Merrill said afterward.

A few innings later, the Padres did exactly that. In the end, it was Fernando Tatis Jr.’s walk-off sacrifice fly that secured a dramatic (and crucial) 4-3 victory over the Reds in 10 innings -- Tatis’ fourth career walk-off RBI and his second this year.

In the process, the Padres kept pace with the Dodgers in the National League West race, remaining one game back after Los Angeles’ victory. Meanwhile, San Diego gained ground on both the Cubs and Mets in the Wild Card race, after both lost on Monday night.

“It's a blast,” said Padres DH Gavin Sheets, who reached base four times. “Every game is extremely important. The crowd knows it. Both teams know it. Obviously, [the Reds] are in the hunt, as well. This is great September baseball. To be back a part of this, it's exactly why I wanted to be here.”

Tatis sparked that sixth-inning rally with a single and a stolen base, and he came around to score on Sheets’ second double of the night (and his career-high 25th of the season). Two batters later, Merrill’s triple tied the game -- and the Padres put their winning formula into action.

Their dominant bullpen nailed it down, with six relievers combining for 4 1/3 scoreless frames. Then, after Freddy Fermin’s perfect sacrifice bunt led to a throwing error in the 10th, Tatis walked it off with a deep fly ball to left. He was mobbed up the first-base line, his jersey ripped off within seconds of Jake Cronenworth touching home plate.

“We just kept going,” said manager Mike Shildt. “That’s what this team does … Freddy’s bunt, Tati’s nice piece of situational hitting, not trying to do too much. It was a really good baseball game.”

And an important win, too. Naturally, the Padres’ focus is on winning the NL West. But if they can claim the top Wild Card spot, they would get largely the same benefit of winning the division: They would host a Wild Card Series at Petco Park. On that front, they trail the Cubs by only two games.

Meanwhile, they’re moving closer to securing a spot in the postseason. A win over the Reds, one of the first teams on the outside of the playoff picture, goes a long way. But perhaps most important in all this: The Padres have won three straight and are starting to look like themselves again -- and not the team that had previously dropped nine of 11.

“We were in a tough stretch,” Sheets said. “We needed to get out of it as soon as possible. The bats have come alive, the pitching has done really well. I feel like we’re playing complete baseball.”

The game started inauspiciously enough, with TJ Friedl hitting a leadoff home run off Yu Darvish following a PitchCom related snafu. In the immediate aftermath, Darvish and catcher Freddy Fermin met in front of the mound in animated discussion.

Evidently, Darvish was trying to call for a two-seamer, but it wasn’t going through to Fermin’s device for an unknown reason. Fermin, meanwhile, had called for a curveball. With the pitch clock winding down, and Darvish not wanting to cross up his catcher, he threw that curveball -- and Friedl promptly hit it out.

Darvish was undeterred -- and ultimately, he pitched better than his final line (5 2/3 innings, three runs) would indicate. The Padres’ ‘pen was excellent behind him.

Jeremiah Estrada and Adrian Morejon covered the seventh. Mason Miller was dominant as ever in the eighth. Robert Suarez was efficient enough in the ninth that he came back out for the 10th. He retired all five hitters he faced, before Shildt boldly called for the lefty Wandy Peralta against the lefty Friedl. Peralta got Friedl to pop harmlessly to left, setting the stage for Tatis.