Padres Stay Alive as Cronenworth Homers, King Closes Out Brewers

The San Diego Padres are still alive in their National League Division Series. Jake Cronenworth hit a tiebreaking home run and Michael King, who started Game 2 just two days earlier, pitched the final two innings as the Padres beat the Milwaukee Brewers 4-3 on Tuesday night at Petco Park, The Associated Press reported. Milwaukee now leads the best-of-five series 2-1, and MLB.com notes that all three games have been decided by a single run.

San Diego played without its two most trusted late-inning arms. Closer Mason Miller went on the paternity list about 45 minutes before first pitch, according to the AP, after his wife went into labor, MLB.com reported. Setup man Adrian Morejon was also unavailable with what manager Craig Stammen called shoulder “stickiness.” “It was hard to map out from the beginning,” Stammen told MLB.com.

The game followed a familiar script. For the third straight game, MLB.com noted, the Padres took an early two-run lead, with Fernando Tatis Jr. and Manny Machado driving in runs, and the Brewers erased it. Cooper Pratt scored the tying run on a Jackson Chourio sacrifice fly, which the AP said was Chourio’s 16th RBI in 15 career postseason games, tying Ryan Braun’s franchise record.

Cronenworth broke the tie by lining JoJo Romero’s first pitch of the fifth inning over the right-field wall, only his second hit of this postseason, according to the AP. In the sixth, Xander Bogaerts singled, moved up on a wild pitch and scored when Pratt bounced a throw for an error after Miguel Andujar’s broken bat flew toward him along with the grounder. Christian Yelich drove in a run with a seventh-inning single, his first playoff RBI since Game 7 of the 2018 NLCS, and Bradgley Rodriguez worked out of the seventh with the lead intact.

That set the stage for King, who had thrown 72 pitches in Game 2. He retired four of his first five batters before walking William Contreras and Brice Turang in the ninth. Yelich then hit a 107 mph line drive up the middle, and Bogaerts dropped to his knees to field it on a short hop, stepped on second and threw to first for a game-ending double play. King needed 40 pitches, MLB.com reported, and earned his first save since 2023, his first in the postseason and his first for San Diego, the AP said.

“I have bullets in my arm that I don’t want to save,” King said, as quoted by MLB.com. “You’re in an elimination game, you want everybody to be all-in on it.” MLB.com added that he is the 16th pitcher since 1969 to throw five innings as a starter and record a save in the same playoff series, and the first since current teammate Walker Buehler in the 2024 World Series.

For Milwaukee, which posted baseball’s best record with 103 wins, the loss was the club’s 12th consecutive postseason road defeat dating to the 2018 NLCS, according to the AP. Contreras homered and had three hits, but the Brewers left 11 runners on base. Buehler will start Game 4 for San Diego on Wednesday night at Petco Park, while Milwaukee had not named a starter. A Game 5, if needed, would be played Friday in Milwaukee. For more playoff coverage, visit our Sports page.

Verification: The score, series status, pitching moves and in-game details come from The Associated Press (updated Oct. 7) and MLB.com (AJ Cassavell, Oct. 7). Quotes are as published by those outlets; attendance of 47,708 is from the official box score as carried by ESPN.