San Diego Padres third baseman Manny Machado acknowledged reporter Karthik Venkataraman's change of outfit ahead of his team's Wild Card win on Wednesday. Machado made headlines for his criticism of the CBS 8 reporter's dress the day prior to the Wild Card Series' commencement, asking him why he wore blue. "Aren't you from San Diego?" Machado asked.
"Why are you wearing blue?" Ahead of Tuesday's game, though, Machado commented on the reporter's suit, which was much closer to the brown Machado preferred. "You made a good adjustment," Machado said. "That was a good adjustment. ...That was good.
I like it, I like it." Fernando Tatis Jr. also chimed in on the suit, saying "good brown, too." Both Machado and Tatis set the tone for the Wild Card series in the first game of their set against the Chicago Cubs, hitting home runs in the first inning to put the Padres ahead in an extremely hostile Petco Park environment. They each had an OPS north of 1.000 across those two games, reaching base a total of seven times while scoring a total of five runs. They weren't the only players contributing, though, as the team scored a total of eight runs in the first game of the series.
In the second game of the set, the Padres jumped to an early lead yet again before a two-run homer from Gavin Sheets in the second inning nearly brought the house down. A shaky Padres pitching staff managed to shut down the best offense in baseball as well, as they allowed just one run to the Cubs, who scored the most runs of any team in the regular season, over the course of those two games. After their two-game sweep of the Cubs, the Padres will head east to Milwaukee, where they will take on the Brewers in the NLDS.
The Padres had the Brewers' number during the regular season, winning four of their six matchups against the winningest team in MLB. They swept the Brewers in San Diego from Aug. 10-12, and will look to put together a strong series against the No. 1 seed as they look to win their franchise's first World Series in 2026.
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