It all changed with a hanging slider.
Gavin Sheets hit his second game-winning home run of the season in the ninth inning with two down, as the San Diego Padres defeated the Milwaukee Brewers 3-1 on Wednesday night at American Family Field in Milwaukee on Wednesday night.
"We believe it. You can feel it in the dugout. Obviously this is a hard game for our offense and we never felt like we were out of it," Sheets said. "I think our whole dugout feels when we get into the ninth inning that we always have a shot."
Sheets hit his sixth home run of the season, scoring Miguel Andujar – who hit a late single and Xander Bogaerts had a walk – off an up and in offering from reliever Abner Uribe, who took his second loss (2-2) of the season.
"We knew with (Jacob Misiorowski) and (Michael King) it was gonna be a low scoring game, and we just wanted to put together good at-bats and continue to fight the whole game, and (I was) happy to come out with one at the end," Sheets said.
A key moment for San Diego (25-17) shortstop Bogaerts came when he held off an inside sinker that was held up by ABS against Milwaukee (23-17) reliever Aaron Ashby, who took his second loss.
"Incredible job by these guys, they can look like they're struggling all night long and all of a sudden knock it in when we need to," manager Craig Stammen said.
"We've done it enough times that I think you can say that it's something we're kind of solid at. Do you think that's going to last the whole season? Probably not... We'll keep working to be better early in the game."
Milwaukee was in control for the entire night.
The Brewers had runners on first and second in the sixth inning, which ultimately chased starter King, but ultimately ended with a running catch by Nick Castellanos in left field. Reliever Jeremiah Estrada went right at his relief batter, getting a flyout to end the inning.
King was brilliant in his 5 2/3 innings pitched, scattering six hits while allowing only one run while striking out five and walking two.
The only run came in the fifth when Brye Turang grounded out into a force at second in a runners on second and third situation with one down in the fifth.
Otherwise, King pulled a masterful escape in the second inning where he stranded the bases full with a called strikeout of Joey Ortiz. Later he left William Ortiz on second when catcher Rodolfo Duran appealed his full count slider in the third that ABS ruled caught the top left part of the zone – strike three, inning over.
King finished with 5 2/3 innings pitched with one (earned) run allowed while scattering six hits and striking out five with two walks despite the no-decision.
"Very rarely you go for a sing-and-miss in a game, it's obviously nice — that limits any type of potential damage... in two-strike counts you're not really going for the chase... but for the most part you're just going to the soft contact and hoping it's three or four pitches or less so you can go deeper in to games," King said.
The Padres had next to nothing otherwise - Milwaukee starter Misiorowski limited the Padres to four hits with 10 strikeouts over his seven innings of work and allowed one situation with running in scoring position.
"We were not trying to over-rotate against and be as short ant as efficient as possible to get to the ball. You don't need to create any power against a guy like that, so you're just trying to barrel him up; you know his off-speed is 94-96 so just trying to be as short to it as possible and be efficient," Sheets said.
Griffin Canning will make his second start in the Majors to close out the series against righty Kyle Harrison (3-1, 2.41 ERA) for the final game of the series. First pitch at American Family Field is scheduled for 10:40 a.m. PT.
This story was updated at 8:04 p.m.