San Diego Padres Show The Abrupt Nature Of A Short Series And Become Latest Team To Celebrate In New York

The first weekend of the new playoff format is over and perhaps if there’s anything to be gleamed the home field factor is just the result of a better regular season and not necessarily and indicator of automatic success.

By around 10:20 pm Sunday night it was most certainly the case. All you had to do is soak in the raucous celebration taking place in the visiting clubhouse of at Citi Field after the Padres closed out a 6-0 win over the 101-win Mets on the strength of Joe Musgrove’s seven innings of one-hit ball and one foreign substance check.

Since the playoffs expanded to a division series in 1995, a wild-card game in 2012, at times New York teams experienced that homefield is not all that it seems to be cracked up to be. The latest example was Padres, who dominated Game 1 against the Mets, nearly came back to win Game 2 and were perhaps even more dominating in the Game 3 clincher.

Their successful weekend made them the ninth team to clinch either a wild-card game or a playoff round as the visiting team in a New York ballpark. While the Padres did not pull off the feat of the 2004 Red Sox (coming back from 3-0 to win an AL pennant), the 2006 Cardinals (winning the NL pennant) or the 2015 Royals (winning a World Series), they did get to enjoy the raucous celebration.

And for nearly an hour, the celebration was a full-blown party, one that seemed focused on dancing and easily going through two cases of Bud Light and Brut 1818 champagne. The Padres swigged the beverages and doused them on teammates and coaches and other figures in an organization who will get to play a home playoff game for the first time since 2006.

The party was a celebration of the team effort that it took to win as the Padres got contributions from eighth-place hitter Trent Grisham. Grisham is a former first-round pick but struggled during the 89-win regular season only to go 4-for-8 and produce a .667 on-base percentage and a 1.917 OPS.

And when the Padres spoke over the blasting rap music to any media who would listen, the comments were focused on Joe Musgrove, the hometown guy who allowed just a 95.1 mph single to Pete Alonso in the fifth inning.

When he was done walking around the clubhouse in sunglasses and a hat while spraying teammates, Musgrove spoke about the magnitude of what he achieved for his hometown along with what unfolded when the Mets became suspicious about his increased spin rate in his six-pitch mix and saw segments of the crowd chant “Cheater” in a futile attempt to rattle the Padres.

“Being in a San Diego jersey means a lot obviously,” said Musgrove, who was born on Dec. 4, 1992 during the offseason when former owner Tom Werner continued to cut payroll leading to a 101-loss season in 1993. “There’s a little more in it for me because I’m from San Diego. I try to take on the weight of everybody that wants that moment, the fans, the girlfriends and wives that all flew out here, all the fans that made the trip, the organization, the people that have waited, the 100 million dollars that they have spent on me for these moments. I put a lot on my shoulders tonight.”

The Mets also seemed to think Musgrove was doing more than putting the weight of a whole city on his shoulders. In a strange scene in the sixth, Buck Showalter marched out to first base for a chat with crew chief Alfonso Marquez and asked for a check of Musgrove.

Then after all six umpires huddled, they checked Musgrove and quickly found nothing. Musgrove then completed the inning much to his enjoyment and that was evident when he gave some kind of unfriendly gesture to the Mets dugout.

“I think he’s trying to get me out of the game,” Musgrove said. “I got no hard feelings against him. It’s a little risky because you put all your guys in your bullpen and your whole staff at risk as well by coming out and checking one of our guys. So, you better be certain.”

“It didn’t seem like that fazed Joe,” second baseman Jake Cronenworth added. “He went out there and throws, seven scoreless. That’s who Joe’s been all year. That’s our guy.”

And while Showalter was wrong, Musgrove and the Padres continued on their path to a celebration they last experienced when they beat Atlanta to clinch the NL pennant in 1998. Musgrove was five when the Padres advanced to the World Series and was 13 when the Padres played their most recent home postseason game in 2006.

The following season, the Padres lost a heartbreaker in a tiebreaker game to the Colorado Rockies. In 2010, they were led the division by 6 1/2 games with a little over a month ago only to be surpassed by the Giants.

In both instances those opponents reached the World Series with the Giants beating Texas for their first of three titles under Bruce Bochy, the former catcher and man who guided them to the postseason four times before heading to Northern California.

Following 2010 collapse, the Padres endured nine straight losing seasons, including the first season when Manny Machado signed with them instead of going to the Yankees like many in New York hoped and possibly expected.

Then came the big moves mixed in along with three-way deal that included the Mets and got Musgrove back to his hometown. Shortly after joining the Padres, Musgrove crossed off a bucket list item when he pitched the team’s first no-hitter.

He produced a 10-9 record this year with one of those losses coming against the Mets on July 24 after Yu Darvish and Blake Snell got wins over the 175-day NL East leaders. Back then the Mets were at 59-37 and beating Musgrove triggered an impressive stretch of 35 wins in 46 games through Sept. 1 culminating in Edwin Diaz’s hardest pitch of his career in a 5-3 win over the Dodgers – the team many figured the Mets would get a chance to match wits with in the NLCS.

As often in the abruptness of a short playoff series in baseball, the anticipated series often never get played and when the Padres were done dancing and dousing each other in beer and champagne, they were the ones headed for a workout in Los Angeles and a chance to beat the Dodgers while the Mets were left to dissect where their special season went off course.

“You get to the postseason, and it doesn’t work out, it’s the worst day of the year,” Max Scherzer said in a somber clubhouse of a team whose offseason aggressiveness matched some of the active moves made by the Padres in recent years.

After posing for the customary group picture on the mound and celebrating in Queens, the Padres get a few more chances to avoid the abruptness of the worst day of the year for any team that loses a postseason series while getting a chance at taking on the best team in baseball.