How cool is it that a 20-year-old kid can walk into the biggest games of the year and already know how to read the room? Ethan Salas isn’t trying to be the loudest guy in that clubhouse. You can tell he’s watching the veterans, guys like Manny Machado who have been through eight postseasons, and letting them show him what to do. That’s rare at any age, let alone 20.

And then he goes out and backs it up. In Game 2 of the Wild Card Series he became the youngest player ever to catch a postseason game. In the first inning, Alex Bregman is up 3-0 and the next pitch is called ball four. Salas taps his helmet, challenges it, and wins. Bregman ends up striking out. That’s a huge swing in a playoff game, and the kid made that call in his first postseason inning.

Then in the second he lifts a sac fly to center that scores Jackson Merrill and makes it 2-0. That made him the youngest player at any position to hit a postseason sac fly since at least 1954. The Padres won 4-1 and swept the Cubs. In Game 1 of the Division Series he picked up his first postseason hit, a single, and came around to score. Yes, the Padres lost that one and Game 2 as well, and now they’re down 0-2 to the Brewers. Not ideal. But none of that is on him.

A.J. Preller has traded away nearly all of the top prospects he’s had over the past five years or so. When Salas’ name came up around the deadline, Preller said “somebody like Ethan, we see him as being a big part of the Padres’ future.” This is exactly why. The poise, the instincts, the fearlessness. A kid who isn’t rattled by October is a good one to have behind the plate. Game 3 is Tuesday at Petco. Let’s see what he does next.