Padres Daily: St. Louis is the place to be; Profar, tone-setter; more clubs await Tatis

Good morning from St. Louis,

This is where it’s at.

The National League wild card race may well take at least another twist and maybe a turn in the two weeks that will remain following the three upcoming games between the Padres and Cardinals.

But this weekend, this feels like it.

The Padres will have 12 games remaining (plus part of a 13th) after Sunday’s series finale. They could be as many as 3½ games behind the Cardinals or as many as 2½ games ahead of the Cardinals by then. The former possibly means there is also at least one team between the Padres and Cardinals, and you can probably make October plans that don’t involve watching the Padres.

The Padres can’t win the second wild card spot this weekend, but it seems like they could all but lose it.

This practically being a playoff series is not what we anticipated.

Not when the Padres were 17 games over .500 and 4½ games up on the Cincinnati Reds in the wild card race on Aug. 10. At that point, the Cardinals were a .500 team and 8½ back with three teams between them and the Padres.

Not when the Reds overtook the Padres on Aug. 22 — with the Cardinals another 3½ games back and having lost four of their previous 10 games.

We made a big deal about how the Padres and Reds were finished playing. There were these three games against the Cardinals, but it didn’t seem like they would carry the significance they do.

Maybe we will never learn. These things just can’t be predicted most of the time.

Because now the Cardinals are the team in possession of the final NL wild card spot.

(MLB.com)

“You control your own destiny,” Tommy Pham said yesterday. “We can go out this weekend and put ourselves in a better situation going forward for the last two weeks of the season. It will be very important for us to go out and execute and try to get the ‘W’ every single day.”

In my game story (here) from the Padres’ 7-4 victory over the Giants, I quoted Jayce Tingler saying, “We’re excited to get into St. Louis. We’re playing a team we’re trailing and we’re fighting for the same thing. What more can you ask for?”

Well, lots of things. Such as a slightly better record than 8-20 between Aug. 11 and Tuesday. The Padres have not won more than two games in a row since winning four straight from Aug. 7 to 10 and have done so just twice since June. Wednesday and Thursday comprised just the sixth time since July 1 the Padres have won two straight.

It’s almost unbelievable to think that even a .500 record since July 1 would have the Padres at 81-75 and 4½ games up on the Cardinals.

But that’s neither here nor there anymore. No, this is where it’s at.

Pro spark

Jurickson Profar led off for a second straight game yesterday. He did not hit a double and a home run again. But he did go 1-for-5 and continue to make Giants pitchers work hard to get past him.

Just two of Profar’s 10 plate appearances over the past two days lasted fewer than six pitches. In all, he went to a full count six times and saw 60 total pitches.

Thursday was just the seventh time this season Profar batted first. It almost certainly won’t be the last. It could be argued that he established the tone for a more determined, patient lineup.

“Profar started it off yesterday,” Pham said. “Today, he did the same thing. He kind of set the tempo. Stuff like that is really important.”

Another club

I wrote yesterday (here) about Fernando Tatis Jr. being on the verge of 40 home runs and how that would align him with a small collection of elite players who have hit 40 homers in a season by their age-22 season.

There is another slightly larger club he will join when he hits his next homer. He already has 25 steals, which means he will become the 22^nd player to ever have at least 40 homers and at least 20 steals.

Having missed 30 games during three stints on the injured list and the Padres exercising some caution with his balky left shoulder may be all that will have kept Tatis from becoming the fifth member of the 40-40 club.

But the 40-20 club is pretty impressive as well. It includes Hall of Famers Willie Mays, Hank Aaron, Carl Yastrzemski, Ryan Sandberg, Jeff Bagwell and Larry Walker. Shohei Ohtani became the latest member on Aug. 28 against the Padres when he stole his 20^th base of the season.

Merry Crismatt

Few people appear happier or are easier to be happy for than Nabil Crismatt.

He is almost always smiling, is down-to-earth and abundantly friendly. You might think he was just happy to be in the major leagues if it weren’t for the fact he is turning out to be quite the useful relief pitcher.

“How big has he been all year?” Tingler asked rhetorically. “He’s been the secret guy at the back end who continues to get the job done.”

Crismatt got the win yesterday for his four scoreless innings. He worked the second through the fifth, allowing three hits and walking one as he extended his streak of not allowing a run to eight games (12 2/3 innings).

In between a half-dozen options to and recalls from Triple-A, Crismatt has compiled a 2.76 ERA over 38 games (71 2/3 innings) while keeping hitters mostly off-balance with a changeup that is his most-used pitch, a curveball and low-90s fastball.

Yesterday was just the 10^th victory in which he has appeared. He has entered 25 games with the Padres trailing, six in which they are tied and seven when they are leading. Generally, those are game they are leading or trailing by quite a few runs, and Crismatt eats up two or more innings.

Every bullpen needs a Crismatt, who was born on Dec. 25, 1994.

“That’s an extremely valuable role,” Craig Stammen said earlier this season.

Yesterday was different, as he entered a 1-0 game the Padres needed to win.

Not that it matters to Crismatt, who made his major league debut last year for the Cardinals before becoming a free agent and signing with a minor league contract with the Padres.

“When I come into the game I don’t care about the score,” he said. “I just like to go out there and pitch all the time like the game is 0-0. … I pitched a long time in the minor leagues. I learned a lot about that. Every time I get the ball here in the big leagues, I take it like it’s going to be my debut.”

By the way, after throwing 62 pitches it is possible Crismatt doesn’t face his former team. He will at least be one of the relievers who won’t be available to pitch today. There could be as many as six that are down or limited, including four of the team’s usual back end arms.

Tidbits

• Manny Machado’s flared single in the eighth inning drove in the Padres’ final two runs yesterday. In his career, Machado is now 31-for-88 with the bases loaded in his career. That ranks ninth among active players.

• That single had an exit velocity of 70.5 mph. The hit was perhaps just the tiniest payback for the many outs Machado has made at 100 mph-plus, including a lineout in yesterday’s fifth inning at 105.8 mph and one in the first inning at 100.6 mph. Machado 167 balls in play at 100 mph or harder are third most in the majors behind Vladimir Guerrero Jr. (188) and Aaron Judge (169). Guerrero is batting .601 on those balls, Judge .568 and Machado .520.

• Since I wrote (here) that Austin Nola and the rest of the players who have played behind the plate for the Padres this season comprised one of the worst-hitting catchers corps in the majors, he is 5-for-8 with two doubles.

• Eric Hosmer was 0-for-5 yesterday and went 1-for-14 in the final three games of the series in San Francisco. That included his going 1-for-6 with runners in scoring position and leaving eight runners on base. (He did drive in two runs with that one hit, a single on Wednesday.)

• Trent Grisham’s eighth-inning single yesterday was his third hit in 38 at-bats. He did drive in a run with a sacrifice fly in the first inning as well.

• Pham was 2-for-5 with a double yesterday. His second-inning single ended a 0-for-12 drought. If ever there is a time to expect Pham to break out of a slump, it might be now. In six games against the Cardinals last season, including the wild card series, Pham was 8-for-21 with two doubles, a home run and four walks. Pham came up in the Cardinals organization and played at least portions of every season from 2014 to ’18 with them.

OK, that’s it for me. I took an overnight flight to St. Louis by way of O’Hare (which is where I am as I write this).

By the way, if you ever have a couple hours at SFO and work to do, there is an alcove in Terminal 1 that is basically a library. I have been doing this travel thing for a while and have had hours to kill in many an airport and have never experienced a space like it. In fact, forget I told you about it.

Talk to you tomorrow.