Padres Strand Twelve, Aztecs Survive on Special Teams Heroics
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The Padres traveled to Milwaukee for Game 1 of the National League Division Series on Saturday night and came away with a 3-2 loss that looked, by all statistical accounts, like a game they surrendered rather than one the Brewers seized. San Diego left twelve runners on base in a one-run contest — a number that encapsulates the team's failure to convert on a night when the pitching held and the margin never widened beyond a single run.
A roster complication now hangs over Game 2. Right-hander Walker Buehler was placed on the three-day paternity list Saturday, with his wife McKenzie expected to deliver their second child. Randy Vásquez filled the roster spot, and Buehler will miss at least the first two games of the series. Michael King is set to start Sunday's game — his first postseason road start, after three postseason starts at home, all resulting in Padres wins. In a best-of-five series, losing the first two games on the road would leave San Diego in an almost insurmountable position.
While the Padres were struggling to convert in Milwaukee, SDSU was engineering one of the season's more disorienting football results. The Aztecs trailed Texas State 17-3 at halftime, were outgained 565 yards to 239 for the entire game, and managed only 13 first downs compared to Texas State's 34 — yet won 31-29 in their first-ever Pac-12 Conference game. Three plays defined the turnaround: Jaylon Hawkins returned the second-half kickoff for a touchdown; Cameron Cooper blocked a Texas State 35-yard field goal attempt and later scored on a 32-yard interception return, accounting personally for a ten-point swing; and freshman running back Josiah Lucas carried 21 times for 111 yards and two touchdowns.
Texas State made it tense at the end, with Beau Sparks catching a 40-yard touchdown pass from Brad Jackson with 1:54 remaining to cut the lead to two points. SDSU held on to improve to 2-3. The announced attendance at Snapdragon Stadium was 28,474, though the turnstile count was 17,567. Complicating the achievement further, the Aztecs played the entire game without thirteen players sidelined by the ongoing campus mumps outbreak — an absence representing more than a fifth of a standard roster.