The Padres did not exactly get to the Reds bullpen as much as the Reds bullpen was given to them on Monday night.

With 18 games remaining in the regular season and a division title and playoff seeding in the balance, the particulars don’t matter.

What does matter is that the Padres took advantage of the circumstances and came back to beat the Reds 4-3 in 10 innings.

The Padres had done nothing most of the night and trailed 3-0 before scoring three times in the sixth inning and winning in the 10th on Fernando Tatis Jr.’s walk-off sacrifice fly.

“It’s a blast,” Gavin Sheets said. “Every game is extremely important. The crowd knows it, both teams know it. Obviously, these guys are in the hunt as well. And so this is great September baseball.”

As they often have this season, the Padres were able to finagle the final outcome against relief pitchers.

The difference in this game was that recent issues with a blister and a bout of the flu had Reds starting pitcher Nick Lodolo limited in how far he could go Monday.

The left-hander controlled the Padres through five innings as if he had every one of them besides Sheets hypnotized.

The Padres got their first ball out of the infield in the third inning. Sheets, who walked in the second inning and doubled in the fourth, was their only baserunner until Jake Cronenworth’s bunt single with two outs in the fifth inning.

But the fifth would be the last inning for Lodolo, who had thrown just 78 pitches but was making just his second start in a little more than a month.

So the Padres were into the Reds’ bullpen at the start of the sixth inning. Tatis led off the sixth with a single against Scott Barlow. He stole second base with Luis Arraez up. And after Arraez flied out to left field and Manny Machado struck out, Sheets drove in Tatis with his second double.

After a walk by Ramón Laureano, which prompted a pitching change, Jackson Merrill launched a drive into the gap in right-center field against Brent Suter. The ball caromed off the glove of diving center fielder TJ Friedl to bring in Sheets and Laureano and tie the game, 3-3.

“I think we just strung together good at-bats and just rode out the momentum from there,” said Sheets, who finished 3-for-3 with a walk. “It was just a string of really good at-bats, whether it was Lodolo or the bullpen arms right there. But obviously, (the Reds used) a lot of their bullpen arms tonight, which is great for us.”

After a strikeout by Jose Iglesias stranded Merrill, the Padres turned to the back end of the bullpen after Yu Darvish and Alek Jacob got them to that point.

Darvish allowed two runs through five innings, the first on Friedl’s leadoff home run and the second on an RBI single by Elly De La Cruz in the third inning.

He was given the chance to get through six innings, but Austin Hays hit a sinker up and in off the front of the lowest balcony on the Western Metal Supply Co. building with one out in the sixth. After retiring the next batter, Darvish was replaced by Jacob, who got the only batter he faced to pop out.

Jeremiah Estrada retired the first two batters in the seventh before yielding a double to No. 9 hitter Matt McLain.

That prompted Padres manager Mike Shildt to go to left-hander Adrian Morejón to face the left-handed-hitting Friedl, who lined out to Tatis in right field.

Mason Miller struck out two in a 1-2-3 eighth inning, and Robert Suarez got a strikeout and two groundouts in the ninth.

Having done so in just nine pitches, Suarez also was sent back out for the 10th. Tyler Stephenson began the inning with a groundout to shortstop, which kept automatic runner Ke’Bryan Hayes at second base. Suarez then struck out McLain before being lifted for lefty Wandy Peralta, who got Friedl on a flyball out to left field.

Cronenworth began the bottom of the 10th at second and went to third on a sacrifice bunt by Freddy Fermín, who ended up safe at first when pitcher Nick Martinez’s throw was dropped by first baseman Spencer Steer. Not that it mattered after Tatis lofted a ball deep enough to left-center to easily bring in Cronenworth.

“Freddy’s bunt and Tati’s nice piece of situational hitting, not trying to do too much,” Shildt said. “It was, is a really good baseball game.”

Unlike their previous nine games, which were against losing teams, Monday was also highly significant for the Padres’ opponent.

It was arguably even more important for the Reds, who began Monday tied with the Giants for the first spot on the outside looking in at the NL playoff picture.

They arrived from Cincinnati after winning the previous two days against the Mets, the team they are chasing for the final NL wild-card spot. With the Mets already having lost again Monday before first pitch at Petco Park, the Reds could have pulled to within three games of playoff position. Instead, they fell a game behind the Giants, who beat the Diamondbacks.

Making the postseason is almost certainly not the issue for the Padres, who sit in the fifth of six playoff spots with a three-game lead over the Mets and six-game advantage over the Giants.

They remain one game behind the Dodgers in the NL West standings. Los Angeles beat the Rockies 3-1 after carrying a no-hitter into the ninth inning for the second time in three games.

The Padres gained ground in the wild-card race, as the team directly in front of them (the Cubs) and directly behind them (the Mets) both lost Monday.

Originally Published: September 8, 2025 at 9:31 PM PDT