3 Padres to blame for wasting chance to eliminate Dodgers at home in NLDS Game 4

It was all there for the taking for the San Diego Padres in NLDS Game 4 on Wednesday night. A chance to send their arch rivals home for the winter in front of a raucous crowd at Petco Park. Ace Dylan Cease on the mound. The beleaguered Los Angeles Dodgers, without Freddie Freeman in the lineup, forced to cobble together a bullpen game due to a lack of healthy starters. All signs pointed to a third straight San Diego win and a spot in the NLCS.

Instead, after Cease was knocked around and L.A.'s bullpen spun a shutout, this series is now headed back to Dodger Stadium for a winner-take-all Game 5. The Padres have gone from cloud nine to DEFCON 1 in the blink of an eye, and if they can't seal the deal on Friday, they're going to be kicking themselves over this loss for a long time — these three names in particular.

3. Manny Machado

Machado has found himself at the center of this series for pretty much every reason other than his play. While the third baseman did keep a run off the board with a spectacular defensive play in Game 4, his bat remained silent, another 0-for-4 night dropping his OPS in this series down to .560. Fernando Tatis Jr. and Jackson Merrill have brought their bats to the yard every night, but if Machado is quiet again in Game 5, it's going to be hard for San Diego to avoid elimination.

2. Mike Shildt

Offensively, Shildt never seemed to adjust to Roberts' mixing and matching on the other side, getting caught flatfooted despite knowing that a bullpen game was coming. But really, the reason Shildt finds himself on this list is for a pitching decision of his own: Handing the ball to Cease on short rest was always an iffy decision, especially given how much the righty had struggled in the loss in Game 1. Cease had never started a game on three days' rest before, and while the pitcher apparently advocated hard to get the ball, it's on the manager to, you know, manage his team, doing what's best even if it's not particularly popular. San Diego has Martin Perez on its NLDS roster for exactly this sort of spot; if it's not going to use him in Game 4, is it going to use him at all?

1. Dylan Cease

While Shildt deserves his share of the blame, we can't forget to criticize the guy who actually threw the pitches. We saw the worst version of Cease in Game 4, the guy who's unable to find the strike zone consistently and gets hit hard after falling behind in counts, and it's not a huge leap to assume that it had something to do with missing a day of rest. Every competitor is going to want to do whatever they can to help their team win, and you can't blame Cease for wanting the ball, but he did himself and the Padres a disservice — and failed to back it up when the lights were brightest.