How MLB’s Youngest Player Is Helping The Padres Even If He Can’t Fully Celebrate

LOS ANGELES – Through a haze of cigar smoke, next to a concoction of Budweiser, Bud Light and Avissi Prosecco that had formed into a growing puddle in the middle of Dodger Stadium’s visiting clubhouse, a shirtless Walker Buehler walked up to a shirtless Ethan Salas and handed the youngest active player in Major League Baseball a beer funnel. The contents inside that funnel, of course, were strictly for the veteran Padres pitcher, who has grown accustomed to this celebratory exercise. Buehler, who threw the final out of the 2024 World Series as a Dodger, has already built his reputation as an October standout. Salas, whose directive at the moment was simply to hold the funnel for Buehler, has not. Called up to the big leagues just 22 days ago, Salas was mature enough to help boost the Padres to their third straight postseason clinch Thursday night — he broke up Tyler Glasnow’s no-hitter with one out in the sixth inning and scored the go-ahead run, then delivered an RBI single an inning later to put the Dodgers away — though not yet old enough to imbibe. So, the 20-year-old found other ways to participate in the revelry, including an assist to Buehler. “It feels good to be a part of it,” Salas told me, referring to his output on the field in the clinching victory. “It’s awesome. It feels even better when you’re contributing.” The Padres’ top prospect began this year at Double-A, got promoted to Triple-A at the end of July and was called up to help with the postseason push on Sept. 2, when — at 20 years, 93 days old — he became the youngest player to catch in an MLB game since Ivan Rodriguez debuted for the Texas Rangers in 1991. His manager, Craig Stammen, told me that he knew Salas could handle the pressure from the moment he met him. “You feel his maturity and his knowledge of baseball and ability to retain information,” Stammen said. “Then, I think once we brought him up, you want to see and test him in certain situations, see how he’s going to handle it.” Salas went hitless in his first 14 at-bats, but the Padres stuck by him in a part-time role. They’re now reaping the rewards. Salas is slashing .381/.409/.762 over his last nine games. He tripled on Sept. 13, became the youngest catcher ever with two home runs in a game on Sept. 16, walked the Padres off with a win on Sept. 19 and came up clutch again Thursday in Los Angeles, helping San Diego seal a spot in the playoffs before hosting Arizona this weekend. “He’s been built for these moments,” Padres president of baseball operations A.J. Preller told me. “From the time we first started scouting him and seeing him, at 16 years old, we thought he was somebody we wanted to challenge. And, he has responded.” That Salas is here at all comes as a surprise, but the same can be said for his Padres team, which was 48-48 with the worst offense in baseball at the All-Star break. At the time, Manny Machado was hitting .203, Fernando Tatis Jr. had five home runs, and Jackson Merrill was the 12th-worst qualified hitter in the sport. “We knew if we just bought enough time, these guys would get hot,” Stammen told me. “It was just going to happen.” But things got worse before they got better. On July 23, the Padres were 50-53. They had the fifth-worst record in the National League and a 7.4% chance to make the postseason. Stammen, a first-year manager with the playing experience to understand the ebbs and flows of a season, tried to keep the faith. His belief was justified. “He’s responsible for a lot of this,” Preller said. Two months later, for the fifth time in seven seasons, the Padres have punched their ticket back to the playoffs. “There were some tough moments that first half,” Preller acknowledged. “Honestly, we were looking around kind of not really knowing what to think because we had so many great players in the room and they were just struggling at a level we had never seen.” Tatis and Merrill eventually shook off their slow starts to look like superstars again. They’re the only set of teammates this year to produce 25-homer, 25-steal seasons, and Tatis is the first player ever to hit 25 home runs in a season after going homerless through his first 50 games. As a team, San Diego ranks first in batting average, second in slugging and third in on-base percentage since the break. The Padres are tied with the Brewers for MLB’s best record in the second half (41-22). “I kept trying to tell the media every day, ‘They’re going to get hot. We’ve just got to be patient,’” Stammen repeated. “That patience paid off. Finally, they did, and they’ve taken our season to another level.” Tatis, who has the highest OPS among all qualified MLB hitters in the second half, got into the action in Thursday’s clinch with two hits, including an RBI single during the Padres’ quick three-run fusillade that put the game away. The offense didn’t need to do much, considering the way Nick Pivetta and the bullpen pitched. The club’s biggest concern entering October is their rotation, which was supposed to be patched up after moves for Casey Mize and Robbie Ray at the deadline. The newcomers, however, have done little to assuage the problem area. Mize, who had a 2.70 ERA in 16 starts for the Tigers, has a 6.64 ERA in nine starts with the Padres. Ray, who had a 3.08 ERA in 22 outings with the Giants, has a 5.02 ERA in nine starts since getting traded to San Diego. But Thursday’s playoff clincher offered hope beyond staff ace Michael King, who has been the rotation’s stabilizing force all year. There were fears that Pivetta might have to miss the rest of the year after a flexor strain in his right elbow wiped out nearly five months of his season. He returned on Sept. 7 for his first outing back since April 12 and fired five scoreless innings. He followed that up with a four-inning, two-run outing and a five-inning, one-run outing before holding the Dodgers scoreless for 4.2 innings Thursday. If Pivetta can keep doing that in October, even if he’s not especially efficient, the Padres will take it. They have arguably the most overpowering bullpen in the sport ready to pick up wherever he leaves off. That group got another boost on Thursday, as Jason Adam returned from injury and threw a scoreless frame in his first game back since June 29. The Dodgers scratched across a couple late runs, but Mason Miller preserved his 38th save to finish off the clinch. The Padres still have something to play for in the final weekend of the season as they look to seal home-field advantage for the wild-card series. That will be important, considering they’re 49-29 at Petco Park and 40-41 on the road. They’ll be relying primarily on their usual cast of characters, but some new faces could help them avenge last year’s wild-card defeat. Ty France has been one of the team’s steadiest hitters in the middle of the lineup in a career year. Buehler brings with him the experience of pitching in 19 playoff games with a career 3.04 postseason ERA. And Salas, who, after helping the Padres secure their first series victory at Dodger Stadium in two years, appears primed to become the youngest catcher ever to play in a postseason game next week. As the partying finally began to simmer down late Thursday night, he held up a sign: Baby’s First Clinchmas. “It’s so much fun to see him out there, in this moment, playing like that,” Preller said. “It’s a bright future. But to do it right now, that’s why we brought him up.”