SAN DIEGO — The first sign that this was going to be a long and strange afternoon at Petco Park popped up early, off the bat of the young Philadelphia outfielder Matt Vierling. When in the world did anybody think the sun would trip up a San Diego team playing at home?
But that’s what happened to the Padres in the second inning of Game 2 of their National League Championship Series against Philadelphia, a damaging inning that threatened to betray them in their own house and deposit them into a dangerous hole.
Good thing they still had the entire afternoon ahead of them.
From the shadows of an early four-run deficit, the Padres ambushed Phillies starter Aaron Nola in a marathon fifth inning, stormed from behind to an 8-5 win and sent this series back to Philadelphia even at one game apiece.
The afternoon came complete with enough subplots to stock a pulp fiction library. Juan Soto, the Padres’ blockbuster August trade acquisition, overthrew third base and lost Vierling’s fly ball to right field in the sun within a span of three batters in the second inning to spark Philadelphia’s four-run uprising. Bryce Harper started the rally with a leadoff single against Padres starter Blake Snell in the first time the two faced each other since Snell fractured Harper’s thumb in late June when he drilled the slugger with a fastball.
Aaron Nola retired his brother, Austin, on a ground ball in the second inning but surrendered a run in the fourth when Austin executed a beautiful hit-and-run play, slicing an opposite-field single that allowed Ha-Seong Kim to scamper home all the way from first base with the Padres’ first run of what, in the end, would become an epic, marathon six-hit, five-run fifth inning that just might have saved San Diego’s postseason.
It was the first time that brothers had faced each other as pitcher and batter in postseason history. It also was the second time in the last five days that the Padres have had an inning last longer than the average sitcom episode.
Against the Los Angeles Dodgers on Saturday, they popped for five runs during a 34-minute seventh inning to erase a 3-0 Game 4 deficit in the division series and send the Dodgers packing.
Against the Phillies, the fifth inning lasted even longer, 37 minutes, as the game went off the rails for Aaron Nola. Following his brother’s picture-perfect hit-and-run with the count at 0-2, Jurickson Profar punched a single and then Soto pulled another 0-2 rabbit out of the hat, ripping an R.B.I. double into right field to send the Padres to a 5-4 lead. Two batters later, Aaron Nola was heading to the dugout and what had been a nice afternoon had suddenly turned stormy for the Phillies.
It was a game of twists and turns and then more twists. Snell came out firing and easily retired the Phillies in the first on just six pitches. But when center fielder Trent Grisham briefly lost the second out in the sun before making the catch, it foreshadowed what was to come in the second.
After that easy inning, thanks to the error, sunlight and a couple of bloop hits, it took Snell 37 pitches to navigate through the second. There was action in the Padres’ bullpen. A couple of times, it seemed as if Snell might have been a pitch or two away from an early exit.
The fact that he persisted for five innings and allowed no runs outside of the second inning was a testament to sheer willpower.
And when he did leave, in a game without a clock, the Padres immediately took over time of possession.
Their 37-minute bonanza sent 10 batters to the plate who mixed in three two-out R.B.I. among the five runs and six hits. Four consecutive Padres reached base with two outs as San Diego chewed through three Philadelphia pitchers: Nola, the left-hander Brad Hand and the right-hander Andrew Bellatti.
Throughout, the sellout crowd of 44,607 crowd howled, reignited by the Padres’ comeback, sudden life and a brand-new outlook on this N.L.C.S.
