Core gets in groove as Padres erupt for 11 runs
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SAN DIEGO -- The Padres needed a game like that one.
Through the first five games of the homestand, the Padres scored 11 runs. They had a collective slash line of .168/.225/.284 and batted .088 with runners in scoring position.
That changed on Saturday night as the Padres got big games at the plate from their core of Fernando Tatis Jr., Luis Arraez, Manny Machado and Jackson Merrill. They went a combined 7-for-15 with three home runs and six RBIs to power the Friars to an 11-3 win over the Rockies at Petco Park.
“The team played easy, played free, played enjoyable,” Padres manager Mike Shildt said. “I saw a confident team down a run. I saw good body language.”
While the Padres didn’t gain any ground in the NL West on the first-place Dodgers, Shildt isn’t worried. He knows his team.
“It’s a dangerous lineup that continues to take good quality at-bats and doesn’t give anything away, enjoys the moment and lets their talent play,” he said. “Then you get more of what we saw tonight.”
After the Rockies took a 1-0 lead in the opening frame, Arráez responded with a single in the bottom half ahead of back-to-back walks by Machado and Gavin Sheets to load the bases. Ramón Laureano tied it on a sacrifice fly.
Tatis pushed the Padres in front, 3-1, with a Statcast-projected 414-foot homer to center in the second inning. Machado led off the bottom of the third by sending a hanging curveball from Bradley Blalock 403 feet to left-center. Merrill added a solo homer two batters later to put the Padres up four runs.
In the fourth, Tatis and Arráez reached ahead of Machado, who knocked in two more runs with a ground-ball base hit to left field to blow the game wide open.
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“When our big boys go, it’s pretty dangerous,” Shildt said. “The good news is we got a lot of big boys. We talk about Manny and Tatis and Jackson, rightfully, they’re guys that we count on.”
What stood out the most to Shildt wasn’t just the core guys, it was the contributions down the whole lineup. Three RBIs from Laureano. A walk from Sheets to load the bases in the first inning. Jake Cronenworth’s at-bats and defense at shortstop in place of the injured Xander Bogaerts. Bryce Johnson’s pinch-hit home run in the eighth to put the exclamation point on the game.
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Starting pitcher Dylan Cease also did his part, tossing six innings of one-run ball, with six strikeouts. He also picked up a pair of milestones on Saturday, surpassing 1,000 career innings and crossing the 200-strikeout threshold for the fifth consecutive season.
“It’s cool,” Cease said of the milestone. “If you’re striking guys out, that’s a good sign. It hasn’t exactly been a year I’m super happy with, but we’re still in it. All I really care about it is winning at the end of the day. So as long as I keep contributing to winning, I’m pretty happy.”