Washington Nationals at San Diego Padres: Final Score & Recap

The San Diego Padres edged the Washington Nationals 5-4 on September 8, 2026, at Petco Park, completing a comeback built almost entirely in the bottom of the eighth inning. The DiamondIQ model entered the game giving San Diego a 61 percent chance of winning at home, but the contest appeared to be slipping away before the Padres' late burst pushed that estimate to 100 percent by game's end.

Washington held a 4-1 advantage heading into the bottom of the eighth, with Brady House's two-run double off Randy Vásquez in the top of the sixth representing the Nationals' signature moment of the night, a swing that added 20.3 percentage points to Washington's win probability. The Padres answered with a four-run eighth that unraveled Nationals reliever Erik Tolman. The decisive blow was a Manny Machado single that added 40.1 percentage points of win probability, the largest single-play swing of the game. Luis Campusano followed with a single worth 18.2 percentage points, and Fernando Tatis Jr. drew a walk off Jared Simpson that added another 13.3 points. Austin Hays chipped in a sacrifice fly, though that play cost the batting Padres 17.0 percentage points before the inning was fully resolved.

Machado finished as the game's most impactful offensive player, totaling plus 44.5 percent WPA and a RE24 of plus 2.4, underscoring his central role in the rally. On the pitching side, Riley Cornelio led all pitchers with plus 18.8 percent WPA, followed by Adrian Morejon at plus 15.2 and Zak Kent at plus 13.0, a trio that helped San Diego bridge from the middle innings to the finish. The DiamondIQ model leans toward games with this profile of late-inning bullpen volatility as favorable to the home side, a pattern that held precisely here.