NL DIVISION SERIES: PADRES VS BREWERS

October 3, 2026

Craig Stammen

American Family Field

San Diego Padres

Postgame 1 Press Conference

Brewers - 3, Padres - 2

Q. This is probably never going to be easy scoring holding the lead the whole time (indiscernible), but how much did it feel like a missed opportunity after the way you guys started so well against that pitcher?

CRAIG STAMMEN: You're right. Anytime you score first in a playoff game you feel really good about it, especially the type of pitching staff we have. We just got beat by a couple home runs tonight.

Q. Can you take us through your thought process and what you saw and what you think might have happened on that Ty France out?

CRAIG STAMMEN: We joked about it at the umpire meeting today about what would happen if the ball hit the roof. And it was unlikely but it happened. The rule is if they deemed the ball to be fair and it comes down you can catch it. If it hits off the roof foul, then it's a foul ball.

So they ruled that it hit the roof fair and the outfielder caught it.

Unfortunately a bad break for us. Looked like it was a possible home run. Just didn't go our way. Second time that's happened this year to the Padres. We should be able to bounce back just fine from it.

Q. Did you guys think in the dugout it was going out off the bat?

CRAIG STAMMEN: Yeah, I think so. I mean, you never know when a guy hits a ball how well he got it. But you look at the exit velocity, look at the launch angle, plug AI into it and figure out how far it would go.

Q. You were able to foul off many pitches against Misiorowski. Just what was the plan going in against him? And I imagine y'all executed it just the way you wanted to, or how did you feel about just the approach against him?

CRAIG STAMMEN: Yeah, we did. We had a good approach against him today. We were able to foul some balls off. Sometimes that's hard to say it's by design.

But we just wanted to compete in the box and the guys competed really well. To limit him to only four innings tonight was a job well done by our offense. Our offense has been swinging the bats really good, taking great at-bats. They continued that again tonight.

Q. You just said that this team has had an interaction with the roof before in this situation and you bounced back just fine. How do you bounce back just fine this time in a playoff setting like this?

CRAIG STAMMEN: The same way. I mean, all experiences help you handle the next experience. And so the fact that we've already went through it makes us laugh again and say, all right, buckle up, let's get after it tomorrow.

And I think that's what our season's been like. Those guys have a great attitude about it. They're ready to go for tomorrow already.

Q. Obviously both teams used their bullpen a lot. You guys used, like, five and a third innings. Especially with King going tomorrow, does that make you feel pretty good that your bullpen's still in good shape for the next game tomorrow?

CRAIG STAMMEN: Yeah, for sure. You can look at the five-game series, you have the two off days in between if it goes five games. So you can use your best guys pretty often. They did the same thing.

They had their best starter going today. We have our best starter going tomorrow. They've got a pretty good starter going also. But in the end, both teams feel like their strength is their bullpen, and I'm sure they're going to use it the same way that we're gonna use ours.

Q. You said with your best starter going tomorrow, what is that mindset now? How does that feel knowing that you have King going in a few hours?

CRAIG STAMMEN: It always feels good when Michael's on the mound. We felt good when he's on the mound all season. He's definitely been our leader on the pitching staff for the entire season, made every start, pitched really well, coming off a great outing against the Cubs in the Wild Card series.

We're lucky to have him going into Game 2 and feel really good about it.