Padres beat Giants, will meet Mets as NL’s No. 5 seed

The Padres finally have a destination: The Big Apple or bust.

“I think T.J. Lasita more than anybody is happy about knowing where to go,” Padres manager Bob Melvin said after a 6-2 win over the Giants punched their tickets to New York to face the Mets as the NL’s No. 5 seed. “He had several different places, hotels, all that stuff. The traveling secretary is a tough job, especially with the way baseball does it now with the extra wild-card. You have no idea where you’re going sometimes until the last minute.

“A little sigh of relief for him.”

And maybe a bit of a headwind, too, for the Padres.

Sean Manaea’s rebound continued with six shutout innings, Wil Myers homered in a two-hit game and the Padres batted around in a second straight game to clinch the final series against the Giants.

Two days after clinching a postseason berth, Tuesday’s win coupled with the Phillies’ loss in Houston cemented a best-of-three showdown against a rotation fronted by Max Scherzer and Jacob deGrom at Citi Field.

The Padres took two of three there after the All-Star break and two of three in June at Petco Park, although deGrom had not yet been activated from the injured list for any of that and Scherzer started just one game — a 4-1 Mets loss in a game started by Yu Darvish.

This series will be played Friday, Saturday and, if necessary, Sunday, all at Citi Field in New York.

“We’ve played them a couple times this year,” said Melvin, whose team will fly to New York on Wednesday evening. “They have a really good team. I know the rotation will be all set up. We’ll see some really good starting pitchers. They will as well. It should be fun.”

All of that is to say that Wednesday’s game is merely a formality before the team finalizes its postseason roster.

Whatever role Manaea ends up with, he at least has momentum after his struggles forced him from the rotation this month. His velocity increasing with time off and the shape of his breaking stuff improving via bullpens between appearances, Manaea has allowed one run over his last 10 innings after spinning six shutout innings of one-hit ball Tuesday to win his last start of the season.

Manaea walked one batter, struck out six and threw 50 of his 66 pitches en route to retiring the last 17 batters he faced, a streak that began with a strikeout and a double-play ball to escape first-inning trouble.

“You struggle, you try to figure out some stuff,” Manaea said. “It’s nice to be able to scratch and claw your way back and try to help this team win.”

Robert Suarez struck out two in a perfect seventh to extend his scoreless streak to 13 1/3 innings.

Luis Garcίa allowed two runs on two hits, a walk and a hit batter in the eighth and Nick Martinez pitched a scoreless ninth.

The Padres led 1-0 via Manny Machado’s third-inning single when they batted around in a four-run sixth after starter Alex Cobb (5 IP, 1 ER) exited, highlighted by Ha-Seong Kim’s two-run double to left.

Austin Nola and Myers also singled in runs in the inning and Myers added a homer in the eighth, his 64^th as a Padre at Petco Park and two more than Machado as the all-time leader.

Kim, Nola, Machado and Brandon Dixon all had two hits.

“I like what we’re doing right now,” Myers said. “Pitching has been doing very well. Offense is a little streaky but getting big hits when we need to, which we need in the playoffs. Hopefully we can keep it up.”