The Padres found the coolest way to win

With two men on base and no outs in the bottom of the ninth inning, Dodgers shortstop Miguel Rojas first put his bat down for a bunt. From his team’s perspective, it was the right decision: Shohei Ohtani was on, and Rojas would make an acceptable sacrifice to allow for a potential Ohtani walk-off against the Padres. But Rojas swung the bat, and there were consequences. On Tuesday, San Diego clinched a postseason berth with a 5-4-3 triple play, becoming the first team in major league history to clinch a playoff berth that way.

“The probability that Shohei won’t get to bat is less than one percent,” Dodgers manager Dave Roberts said after the loss. “And unfortunately that small percentage came into play.”

The Padres, one of the most mediocre teams in the middle of the season, are now just two games behind first-place Los Angeles in the NL West and have two games left in the series. Their second-half surge was largely fueled by the pitching performances of Dylan Cease and newly revamped starter Michael King; their best hitters, as everyone expected, were Jackson Merrill and Jurickson Profar. The Padres are now 9-1 in their last 10 games. The one-percent triple play to win is an apt summary of their post-All-Star Game success—that it came against the Dodgers is poetic.

I don’t want to engage in triple-play snobbery, but I must note that while it’s very memorable to clinch a playoff spot by running a triple play, this is actually the second triple play of the season, and the first was much stranger. (That the first was run by the Phillies is beside the point.) While the 5-4-3 triple play is the most boring kind of triple play, it’s also the most honest. There was no silly mistake by a baserunner or accidental comebacker. Rojas began this brilliant moment of fielding by hitting a grounder to third, an event of this kind that can be seen in every game. The Dodgers’ No. 9 hitter had a knack for it: In his last two at-bats yesterday, he’d hit both a grounder and a grounder into a double play. It’s unclear what the fourth delivery might be to create some kind of perverse groundout cycle.