The Padres kept going and so they’re still going.

In both exciting and troubling ways, Wednesday night’s 5-4 win, which swept the Braves out of the National League wild-card bracket, was emblematic of how the Padres have operated all season.

A five-run second inning, their starting pitcher going out with a tight elbow, and more than four innings of survival by five relievers provided the highs and the sighs on a loaded night for the Padres and the 47,705 who packed Petco Park .

When catcher Kyle Higashioka caught Travis d’Arnaud’s foul pop-up as he tripped over first baseman Donovan Solano for the final out, the Padres players climbed over the railing. After a loud cheer, the crowd erupted into a “Beat LA” chant.

For the third time in five years, the Padres will play the Dodgers in the National League Division Series, which starts Saturday in Los Angeles.

But as the Padres hugged and donned NLDS T-shirts on the field and prepared to spray champagne in the clubhouse, there was also concern.

Joe Musgrove, who missed two and a half months from late May to mid-August due to various elbow ailments, left the game in the fourth inning with what the team called tightness in the right elbow.

Musgrove had retired nine batters in a row when catcher Kyle Higashioka, after throwing a 2-1 curveball to Matt Olson, immediately headed to the mound while pitching coach Ruben Niebla started from the dugout seconds later. Athletic trainer Ben Fraser and manager Mike Shildt followed.

After about a minute of conference, Shildt patted Musgrove on the chest, and the right-hander walked Fraser to the Padres dugout.

Bryan Hoeing replaced Musgrove and retired Olson on a pop-up before yielding a lead-off homer to Jorge Soler in the fifth inning.

Jeremiah Estrada led off the sixth, allowing a single with one out and another with two. He left with two outs and runners on the corners and left-handed hitter Olson was about to appear.

Left-hander Tanner Scott came in to face the Braves’ cleanup hitter and left the runners behind when Olson lined out to left fielder Jurickson Profar.

Scott followed a leadoff walk to Soler in the seventh with three straight outs.

Jason Adam gave up a single to Orlando Arcia and a homerun to Michael Harris II before retiring the side in the eighth.

Robert Suarez, the closer who squandered three of six save chances toward the end of the regular season, then converted his fourth in a row with a 1-2-3 ninth.

What the Padres did to win on Wednesday would have been surprising if they hadn’t done something like that properly over the past six months.

That’s their thing. It doesn’t matter what happens before what happens matters.

On Wednesday, they failed to score in the first inning after the bases were loaded with no outs.

An inning later, they scored five runs after not deploying anyone with two outs.

In consecutive at-bats in the first inning, Manny Machado struck out and Jackson Merrill grounded into a fielder’s choice on a first-pitch sweeper that was barely above the ground. In the second inning, Machado broke a 1-1 tie with a two-run double and Merrill made it 5-1 with a two-run triple.

The five-run inning, which started with Higashioka’s second home run in two nights, was the Padres’ second in four games, but also only their second in 60 games. To that point, they had scored at least five runs in an inning and led 12 times in the MLB.

Those are the 2024 Padres.

Sometimes they falter. But they don’t stay down. And they seem capable of anything.

Before Musgrove became dominant to the point where he left, the Braves ambushed him in the first inning when Michael Harris II hit the first pitch of the game down the right field line for a double and went to third base on an Ozzie grounder Albies. and scored on a lineout to left field by Marcel Ozuna.

The Padres started the bottom half of the first inning by loading the bases without getting a ball out of the infield and then continued not to get the ball out of the infield and failed to score.

Luis Arraez and Fernando Tatis Jr. reached base on infield singles – Arraez on a slow bouncer up the middle and Tatis with a 100-mph line drive off the left hip of Braves starter Max Fried. Profar followed with a dribbler to the right side of the mound that Fried picked up and threw late to second.

The potential for a big inning deflated pretty quickly.

Machado struck out on three pitches. Merrill then hit the first pitch he saw to first base, where Olson fielded the ball and threw it home to force out Arraez. And Merrill was forced out at second on a grounder to shortstop by Xander Bogaerts.

As had happened for a long time in their 4-0 victory in Game 1, the Padres didn’t do much after the second inning.

But in the postseason, the result is all that matters.

Originally published: October 2, 2024 at 8:29 PM