MILWAUKEE — Just as they had in the first game, the Padres scored the only run in the last game of this weeklong trip up the West Coast and then over to the Midwest.
“It has been a week of postseason baseball,” Manny Machado said.
It was not small ball that decided another close game played by the Padres. It was one very long ball by Machado that accomplished that.
His 425-foot home run in the seventh inning, just the third hit in the game to that point, was the difference in a 1-0 victory over the Brewers and the difference in making it a winning week.
The Padres played four one-run games in San Francisco and two here and finished 4-3 on the road trip.
“You talk about grinding,” manager Mike Shildt said. “They got after it. Six one-run games, one two-run game. … I couldn’t be more pleased with this road trip overall and just the dedication to competition.”
It goes back much further than this trip.
As they head into a series that begins Monday at Petco Park against the Dodgers, who they trail by one game in the National League West, the Padres have won four of their past five series and split the other.
Every one of their 10 victories in that span has come by a margin of no more than two runs, and Sunday was their major league-leading 23rd such victory.
Their 14 one-run victories are second most in the majors and their .636 winning percentage (14-8) in those games is third best.
“Very rarely are you blowing out a team in the playoffs,” reliever Jason Adam said. “Of course, we love blowouts when they happen, and we love winning by 20. But there are a lot of important games played that are really close, so a team that can battle together and win those ballgames is special, and that’s what we have here.”
Sunday was also their MLB-leading ninth victory when scoring no more than two runs and their MLB-best 12th shutout victory.
Two of those were completed by the pitcher who started the game — Michael King on April 13 and Stephen Kolek on May 10. The other 10 were group efforts.
This one was finished off by five relievers after 5⅓ innings by rookie Ryan Bergert at the start.
None of the Padres’ three starters in the series — Bergert, Kolek and Randy Vásquez — allowed a run.
“We’ve got to give credit to these young guys, what they did these last three starts,” shortstop Xander Bogaerts said. “The bullpen, they’ve been solid the whole year. Last year, this year. You know what you’re getting with them, but you’re having three young guys go out and doing that against good teams. That’s a lot of credit to those three guys.”
The game might have lasted into the night if not for Machado’s blast off Brewers left-hander Ron Zastryzny.
It was Machado’s second home run in three nights and third in four games. He was hitless in the first game on the trip and 11-for-24 with six RBIs the rest of the way.
“No one guy did it all this road trip,” Shildt said. “But, you know, I’m glad Manny made the trip.”
Machado’s homer leading off the seventh was the middle of the Padres’ three hits, one fewer than the total with which the Brewers finished.
Neither team had a hit until Rhys Hoskins dropped a one-out single on a soft line drive into left field with one out in the bottom of the fifth inning.
Tyler Wade began the sixth inning with a single he lined softly to right field off Brewers starter Freddy Peralta.
Bergert, a 25-year-old right-hander, was making his second career start. He allowed two runs in five innings on Tuesday in San Francisco.
“I made pitches when I needed to,” Bergert said. “I think today, I was executing things a little bit better than my last start, and I was happy with that. … I felt more comfortable on the mound and not so jittery as the first one.”
Bergert set down the Brewers’ first seven batters on 24 pitches before walking Caleb Durbin and falling behind 3-0 to Joey Ortiz.
But he threw two strikes and then got out of the inning when Ortiz lined a ball down the right field line that Fernando Tatis Jr. ran 39 feet to catch before throwing to first base to double up Durbin, who was running on the pitch.
Bergert got through the fourth inning on 10 pitches and was at 47 pitches and had faced the minimum 12 batters to that point.
He struck out William Contreras to start the fifth before walking Sal Frelick and yielding a single to Hoskins that moved Frelick to third.
With Yuki Matsui warming up in the bullpen, Bergert won two seven-pitch battles to get out of the inning, striking out Jake Bauers and getting Durbin on a grounder to third base.
He began the sixth with a groundout, as well, before walking the next two batters.
Matsui came in and struck out Christian Yelich before walking Contreras to load the bases and leaving them that way when he struck out Frelick.
Sean Reynolds and Wandy Peralta got through the seventh. Adam survived a pair of two-out singles in the eighth. Robert Suarez worked around a two-out single to extend his MLB-leading saves total to 21.
“The guys in the bullpen have been fantastic,” Shildt said of a relief corps that allowed five runs (three earned) and just two of 14 inherited runners to score in the seven games. “We ed the ball around. Had to and feel confident doing that. … The pitching has been fantastic.”
