The San Diego Padres have been getting a lot of clutch, game-winning homers lately, with Gavin Sheets at the forefront.
The San Diego Padres did it again last night, as Gavin Sheets once again rescued the Pads with a ninth-inning, three-inning home run against the Milwaukee Brewers as the Padres pulled out a 3-1 win.
As AJ Cassavell of MLB.com noted, it was the second time in three games that the Padres have been held scoreless for 26 outs, only to avert defeat with a ninth-inning home run.
On Sunday it was Nick Castellanos against the St. Louis Cardinals, and last night it was Sheets, who already has a walk-off home run at Petco Park and a go-ahead home run in Colorado against the Rockies. He’s the first Padres since B.J. Upton in 2016 to hit three go-ahead home runs in the ninth inning or later in a single season, according to Cassavell, and there are still a lot of games to go.
“I see just a calmness about him,” Stammen said. “He feels confident in himself whether he gets the job done or not. So he’s playing with a little bit of freedom, taking an at-bat with freedom.”
Sheets attributes his success to wanting that at-bat in the moment, and that mindset is clearly working.
“The biggest thing, when [Xander Bogaerts] was up, is just telling myself I wanted that at-bat,” Sheets said. “Just continue to say, ‘I want this at-bat, I want this at-bat.’
“I want the moment.”
That self-belief extends to the team as a whole as well. The Padres suddenly came alive after being shut down by Jacob Misiorowski of the Brewers for seven innings, and they needed a base hit by Miguel Andujar and a walk to Bogaerts to make Sheets’ blast produce more than a tie.
“As an offense, we’re not at our peak right now,” Sheets said. “But we’re having unbelievable at-bats at the most important parts of the game.
It’s a weird belief that we’re going to get it done. In the hardest part of the game, there’s just the whole entire dugout saying, ‘Hey, this ain’t our first time.’”
Stammen also praised the sudden change that happened in the final frame.
“Just good at-bats there in the ninth,” said manager Craig Stammen. “Sheets got one that he liked, and took it out of the ballpark.”
Andujar started the rally, and he also summed it up in a single statement.
“At the end of the day,” he said, “we compete to 27 outs.”