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Walker Buehler did not want to discuss being pulled from his previous start after just four innings of one-run ball.
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He let his pitching do the talking Tuesday.
Quite a bit more talking, actually, thanks in part to quite a big cushion.
The 32-year-old veteran completed six innings for the first time in two months, Luis Rengifo hit his first career grand slam against the team that released him in June and Fernando Tatis Jr. and Luis Campusano also homered in an 11-2 romp over the Milwaukee Brewers in front of a sellout crowd 40,534.
The win was the fourth in a row with the Padres, who are now tied with both the Phillies and Diamondbacks in the race for the NL’s second and third wild-card spots.
The Phillies lost in St. Louis, although Philadelphia owns the tiebreaker by sweeping the season series. The Diamondbacks lost 3-2 to Colorado at home.
Meantime, the Padres have outscored the opposition by 30 runs while winning 14 of their last 18 games.
“No special secret, man,” said Tatis, who is up to 12 homers. “We just know what time of the year we are, and we have cleaned it up as a team, as an offense, as a (defense). Our pitchers have given us a chance to really win ballgames. So just everything is coming together at the right time, and we better keep it that way.”
Rengifo’s second-inning grand slam opened up a 5-0 lead to immediately give Buehler significant breathing room and set the tone for a 17-hit attack.
Tatis’ fourth-inning solo shot moved him out of a tie with Nate Colbert and into sole possession of second place on the team’s home run leaderboard with 164. Only Manny Machado (217) has more in a Padres uniform.
Campusano’s two-run blast in the fifth turned the game against the owner of baseball’s best record into a laugher and made it all that much easier for the Padres to stick with Buehler even when he ran into trouble in the sixth inning.
Brewers manager Pat Murphy pulled Jackson Chourio to start the frame and former Padres outfielder Brandon Lockridge promptly followed with a pinch-hit single. Buehler walked the next batter but then retired the next three to complete six innings for the first time since June 3.
Buehler (4.88 ERA) struck out five and allowed a run on three hits, two walks and a hit batter before handing a 10-run lead to left-hander Wandy Peralta in the seventh inning.
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“Yeah, I mean, obviously when the offense gives you a little bit of cushion like that, you can pitch a little bit differently and try and really get ahead,” Buehler said after throwing 58 of his 98 pitches for strikes in spinning his fourth quality start this season. ” … These days I’m throwing a lot of two-seam, cutters, which are pitches (when) you want the ball put in play. When you put it in the zone, hopefully good stuff happens, and tonight was a good example of that.”
A mostly positive season has still been somewhat of a roller coaster for the former Dodgers All-Star. Buehler signed a minor league deal in February after two years of struggles following a second elbow reconstruction, was sitting on an ERA as low as 3.81 on June 26 and allowed 20 runs in his first three starts in July (11 IP).
He’d rebounded since then (3.72 ERA over last 19⅓ innings), but that included being pulled over four innings of one-run ball in his previous start.
The Padres did so to hand a tight game against the rival Diamondbacks over to a dominant bullpen, but no doubt there was an eye on Buehler’s third-time-through-the-order penalty.
Opposing hitters have a .756 OPS in their first plate appearance against Buehler in a game, a .747 OPS the second time and an .889 OPS the third time.
Such things don’t weigh matter so much when your bats build a big lead as the Padres did Tuesday.
Buehler did his part, too, largely cruising through six innings. Even the run he gave up after needing just 27 pitches to get through two innings scored after an awkward play at first base in which a tapper bounced off the base and crossed up Buehler and Ty France, both of whom went for the carom to no avail.
A passed ball and a hit batter ensued, but Buehler escaped with minimal damage by fetching three groundouts, one scoring David Hamilton to shave the Padres’ lead to 5-1.
Better yet, Buehler still had thrown just 40 pitches through three innings, setting up the chance for him to pitch quite a bit deeper into the game. With the offense opening in the floodgates, the two-time All-Star knew just what to do after coming off age in Los Angeles under the watch of future Hall-of-Famer Clayton Kershaw.
“Coming up as a young guy, I had a left-hander in L.A. that would if I missed 0-0 anything with a lead like that, he would kind of come down on you pretty good,” Buehler said. “So that’s kind of the one and only thing that I carry along, is when you have a lead, you’ve got to throw 0-0 strikes.”
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This story was originally published August 11, 2026 at 9:47 PM.