A Two-Inning Save For San Diego's Mason Miller Is Rare, But Had Been Doable

Before Sunday afternoon's game Two of the NL Divisional Series against the Milwaukee Brewers, San Diego Padres' closer Mason Miller had pitched just once since Sept. 26. That was a relatively simple 19-pitch effort on Sept. 30 that resulted in the series-clinching save in the Padres' two-game sweep of the Chicago Cubs in the Wild Card round.

The three days of rest that Miller had experienced prior to Sunday even led to speculation from Will Leitch of MLB.com that should the situation arise Miller could be available for a multi-inning save in Game Two.

As it happened, that exact scenario played out as the Padres entered the bottom of the eighth holding a 3-2 lead over the Brewers, prompting manager Craig Stammen to send Miller to the mound to attempt a six-out save.

Stammen had asked for more than one inning from Miller nine times during the regular season. Both games in which Miller went two full innings, the Padres won in 10 innings, 7-6 against the Atlanta Braves on June 23 and 3-2 against the New York Yankees on Sept. 4. The other seven instances had all resulted in Padres' victories, with Miller picking up saves in six of them.

Ironically, the one time when Miller blew the save chance was his most recent attempt at a multi-inning save, on Sept. 19 when Griffin Conine of the Miami Marlins hit a game-tying home run off Miller in the top of the ninth. David Morgan replace MIller after he had thrown 26 pitches and picked up the win when Ethan Salas plated Jake Cronenworth with the winning run in a 7-6 victory.

So, it wasn't much of a surprise when Miller entered the game on Sunday in the bottom of the eighth and the Padres clinging to a 3-2 lead. The eighth inning was classic Miller: a 1-2-3 frame in which he struck out Brice Turang and Jake Bauers before coaxing a weak fly ball to rightfielder Fernando Tatis Jr. from William Contreras.

It looked like more of the same in the ninth as Garrett Mitchell opened the inning by grounding out. Then things began to go awry. Christian Yelich walked on five pitches and promptly stole second, putting the tying run in scoring position. Sal Frelick then walked on six pitches, putting the winning run on base.

Order appeared to be restored when Milwaukee pinch-hitter Andrew Vaughn flied to centerfielder Jackson Merrill for the second out.

That brought another pinch-hitter, Gary Sanchez, to the plate. Like Miller, Sanchez had appeared only once since Sept. 26, a start at catcher on Sept. 27 in which he went 1-for-4 with a two-run homer against the St. Louis Cardinals.

On Sunday, Sanchez didn't need to swing the bat as he walked on six pitches to load the bases.

Striding to the plater was Milwaukee leftfielder Jackson Chourio, who had hit the two-run HR on Saturday to knot Game One 2-2 in the Brewers' eventual 3-2 victory. With the count 1-2, Chourio managed to foul off a 103.5-mph four-seam Miller fastball to stay alive. Then, with the count 2-2, Chourio lined a 101-3-mph four-seamer into right-center field with Yelich and Frelick dashing home with the tying and winning runs in the 4-3 triumph that gave Milwaukee a 2-0 lead in the series.

In total, Miller threw 40 pitches in 1.2 innings of work with two strikeouts and an uncharacteristic three walks. Chourio's game-winning single was the only hit he allowed in the first game this this season, which covered 67 total appearances, in which Miller was handed the dreaded blown save/loss combination. In fact, the last time Miller had been handed a walk-off loss was on May 17, 2025, when he was still toiling for the A's.

“Terrible. I didn’t do my job today,” was Miller's post-game critique of his performance, as reported by Adam McCalvy of MLB.com. “Instead of being here with a win and the series tied, we’re in a hole.”

The Padres now head home to Petco Park needing to win the final three games of the series to advance to the NLCS. With a day off before Tuesday night's contest (6:30 p.m. PT on FS1), Miller should be available out of the pen, but whether he can cover multiple innings again is in question. The Padres sure would like to give him the opportunity.