PHILADELPHIAPHILADELPHIA — The Padres were in a must-win situation Sunday, but they had Yu Darvish on the mound, their best leverage relievers rested and a 3-2 lead after three wild pitches, of all things, quieted a raucous Philadelphia crowd.
What transpired after that in Game 5 of the National League Championship Series figures to be second-guessed, some facets more than others, until pitchers and catchers report in February and for quite some time after that.
That’s what happens when decisions don’t pan out.
So often they had this month — at least until Bryce Harper’s two-run homer in the eighth inning off Robert Suarez gave the Phillies a 4-3 win and thrust Philadelphia into the World Series instead of onto a plane back to San Diego.
It wasn’t like Suarez was a stranger to big situations. , he bailed Darvish out of a first-and-third jam in in the sixth inning of Game 2 in the NLDS at Dodger Stadium and walked his own tightrope the next inning in the first of three straight wins against the 111-win dragon.
So when the bullpen door at Citizens Bank Park swung open after Bryson Stott’s leadoff double, no one questioned Suarez jogging across the soggy outfield grass and onto the rain-slicked mound.
“Not just me, but I think this goes for everybody,” Darvish said after allowing two runs in six-plus innings Sunday. “We have all the confidence in the world in Suarez. He’s been lights out, especially toward the end of the season and in the playoffs. I think we were all confident in him.”
Of course they were.
Until Rhys Hoskins’ home run off him Wednesday at Petco Park, Suarez had pushed his scoreless innings streak to 19 1/3 dating back to the final month of the regular season.
Suarez looked to start a new one by stranding Stott at second base via a flyball to right, a strikeout, and after intentionally walking Kyle Schwarber after falling behind in the count, another fly ball to right off the bat off Hoskins.
Thing is, there were still two innings left, the left-handed Harper loomed as the second hitter in the eighth and lefty closer Josh Hader hadn’t recorded even five outs in a game since September 2019.
J.T. Realmuto’s single to start the bottom of the eighth further crystalized the conundrum:
Stick with Suarez for another five-out appearance or drop in Hader — who was up and throwing in the bullpen — for the left-on-left matchup vs. Hader and let Luis Garcίa have the ninth.
“It’s a thought at this point, but that wasn’t what we were thinking,” manager Bob Melvin said. “We were trying to get to four-out position for Hader, and we have a lot of confidence in Suarez.”
Melvin added: “If it got later, (Garcίa) was available. But at that point in time, we were trying to finish the game with those two guys.”
It didn’t work.
Harper hammered a 99 mph sinker, up and on the outer half of the plate, and sent it on a 109 mph line over the wall in left, the first home run Suarez allowed to a lefty all year.
All the while, Hader — the closer acquired to shut the door in such situations, who hadn’t allowed a run in his last 14 2/3 innings — continued to throw in the bullpen.
“(Hader) wasn’t even ready at that point,” Melvin said. “It would have been less than six outs for him. We would have tried to get through the inning with him. At that point in time, I had confidence in Suarez.”
Suarez certainly had built confidence from his opening-day meltdown in Arizona to shining on the big stage in L.A. earlier this month, his 101 mph heater officially introducing himself to a much larger baseball audience in the postseason.
His star would have soared even higher had he won Sunday’s matchup, but before the “swing of his life,” the take of his life kept Harper in his at-bat.
The reigning NL MVP first tipped a 96 mph sinker into Austin Nola’s glove. He watched a 97 mph four-seamer sail above the zone and then fouled off three straight pitches, 98 mph and above, before the Padres’ 31-year-old rookie dropped a 92 mph change-up under the strike zone.
Somehow, Harper let it to even the count.
Later, in a quiet visiting clubhouse, Nola could only shake his head.
“Unbelievable take,” the Padres’ veteran catcher said. “That’s the pitch he swings at. The fact that he patient-ed up and took it — that’s Suarez’s best pitch.”
Said Suarez: “I felt like I made good pitches. Obviously it was a good at-bat for him, but I felt like I was making good pitches the whole at-bat. The one he hit out was obviously outside and he was able to connect and get that big hit.
“I don’t know if he was looking for that (change-up) or not looking for it. All I know is I felt it was a good pitch and he laid off it and that’s all you can do.”
And that’s how the Padres’ 2022 season came to an end, the Game 5 script nearly going to plan until it didn’t.
