Padres' bats come alive in series-opening win over Marlins
Xander Bogaerts celebrates after getting a base hit during the first inning of Tuesday’s game against the Marlins.
The Padres have been putting together more competitive at-bats throughout games for much of the past 10 days.
They had not gone long stretches of innings without runs, as they have so often this season. They had made more innings uncomfortable for opposing pitchers, as they rarely have this season.
“We’ve been hitting good,” Rougned Odor said, “but we haven’t been getting the results.”
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That had been important to them, but it had not always mattered in the way it had to eventually matter. They arrived on the final stop of this three-city trip having won three and lost three and not even close to where they expected to be in the standings.
Positive signs beat the alternative. But barely so in late May. It is necessary now to start beating opponents regularly.
So it was good that Tuesday — for the opener of a three-game series, at least — being resilient did result in being a winner.
The Padres played catch-up all night, ultimately catching up in the seventh inning and running away in the ninth with their biggest inning of the season in a 9-4 victory over the Marlins.
“Putting together good at-bats and having a better result today is a huge win for us,” Fernando Tatis Jr. said. “… This is 100 percent what we should be doing, what this offense should be doing. Gladly, we’re taking better at-bats as a group, and today we had a good result.”
Tatis began a five-run ninth inning with a leadoff walk, stole second and went to third on a throw that bounced into center field. He scored on Xander Bogaerts’ single up the middle. Juan Soto, who was intentionally walked after Tatis moved to third, scored on Odor’s grounder to shortstop, and Odor and Bogaerts scored on Matt Carpenter’s second RBI double of the game. Brandon Dixon pinch-ran for Carpenter, went to third on Trent Grisham’s two-out single and scored on Ha-Seong Kim’s sacrifice fly.
“We’ve said it all year long, and we’re gonna continue to say it,” Carpenter said. “We know what we’re capable of, but it’s just a matter of going out and doing it. Today, it was great. Just really competitive at-bats all the way through the lineup and just a great showing offensively.”
Eight of the nine starting players reached base and seven different batters had at least one hit.
“It’s huge for us,” Odor said. “Today we get the results, but we’ve been playing like this for a (while). Today showed what we’ve been doing for the last week probably.”
The Padres stole a season-high five bases, went 6-for-16 with runners in scoring position and scored in four of the final six innings to get back to four games under .500 as they reached the one-third point of the season.
“We’re behind, and all of a sudden now we have the type of inning that we’re capable of having,” manager Bob Melvin said. “So it was good to see us string some together and do it a little bit differently at times — a little running, a sac fly, some big hits and so forth. Just need to string a few (games) together.”
The Padres trailed 1-0 after three innings, tied the game in the fourth on Odor’s walk and Carpenter’s double and went down 3-1 in the bottom of the fourth.
Kim walked, stole second and went to third on an errant throw and scored on Soto’s single to get one run back in the fifth before the Marlins scored twice in the sixth.
Grisham and Kim began the seventh with walks against Marlins starter Sandy Alcantara, who was done after Tatis’ one-out single scored Grisham and moved Kim to second. Soto tied the game with a single off reliever Tanner Scott before Bogaerts and Odor struck out.
Padres starter Ryan Weathers was out after four innings, having thrown 96 pitches and allowing three runs on seven hits and three walks. Domingo Tapia worked a perfect fifth before walking the three batters he faced at the start of the sixth. Tim Hill replaced Tapia and allowed an RBI single before ending that inning.
Steven Wilson pitched a scoreless seventh and Nick Martinez a scoreless eighth before the big top of the ninth allowed the Padres to forego using closer Josh Hader and turn to Brent Honeywell for a scoreless ninth.
The Padres entered the game having scored just 15 runs in the ninth inning, tied for 23rd among the 30 MLB teams. They had scored just 63 runs all season after the sixth inning, third fewest in the league.
“It was great, especially just the way we answered back as an offense,” Carpenter said. “They score, we come back and score again. Just great at-bats, top to bottom and a little bit of a showing of what we know this offense can do.”
Source: The San Diego Union-Tribune
