Ha-Seong Kim not just kicking himself in extra-inning loss to Mets
Padres second baseman Ha-Seong Kim (7) reacts after Mets third baseman Luis Guillorme (13) tagged him out during the seventh inning at Petco Park on Friday, July 7, 2023 in San Diego.
Before a 76 mph bouncer down the first-base line, of all things, opened the floodgates in the 10th inning of the Padres’ 7-5 loss to the New York Mets, it was a ball down the left-field line that had Ha-Seong Kim kicking himself Friday.
And a water cooler.
A full water cooler.
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The Padres’ second baseman was thrown out in the seventh inning trying to stretch a double into a triple for the second out in a 3-3 game. He believed he could beat Tommy Pham’s throw to the bag after what he thought was a slow attempt to field the ball out of the corner. Then he thought Mets third baseman Luis Guillorme nudged him off the bag. Then he knew the play could loom large after Juan Soto’s ensuing double would have scored him easily.
Somewhere along the line, Kim ventured down the dugout steps and kicked a water cooler. He was later removed from the game in the top of the ninth with a jammed big right toe.
Kim is day-to-day.
“I was making a full-speed turn at second base and I saw Tommy Pham taking it slow on the play,” Kim said through interpreter Leo Bae, “so I made an aggressive decision and then it obviously didn’t turn out the way I wanted. I also felt the play influenced the outcome of the game. …
“I take full responsibility of the play I made and the mistake, and in the future that’s not going to happen.”
It wasn’t the only reason the Padres’ win streak was halted at three in front of a sellout crowd of 42,712 at Petco Park to open a critical three-game series against the Mets to close the first half.
But it certainly cast a shadow as the bullpen followed Yu Darvish’s rusty return to the mound with four shutout innings only to have Tom Cosgrove give up an RBI double on the first pitch he threw in extra innings.
Luis Garcίa bailed Adrián Morejón out of the sixth and threw a scoreless seventh, Tim Hill got through the eighth unscathed and Nick Martinez, filling in for an unavailable Josh Hader, got out of a bases-loaded jam in the ninth by starting a 1-2-3 double-play on Starling Marte’s comebacker to the mound.
But Jeff McNeil’s bleeder of a double was just the tip of the iceberg in the 10th.
By the time Francisco Lindor singled off Brent Honeywell Jr., four runs had scored, making Manny Machado’s two-run homer in the bottom half of the 10th a footnote as the Padres fell to 0-8 this season in extra innings.
“It is what it is,” Padres manager Bob Melvin said. “I mean we can’t get past it. But I mean to give up four runs in the 10th, it’s going to be a tough one to come back from.”
Which brings the conversation back to Kim’s seventh-inning decision.
The Padres scored three runs off Justin Verlander in six innings, with Machado doubling in a run in the first inning and scoring on an error. Trent Grisham added a run-scoring double to extend their lead to 3-1 in the second inning and then the offense largely fell silent until Kim’s one-out double in the seventh off left-hander Brooks Raley after Verlander’s exit.
After he was thrown out, Soto doubled to left-center and was stranded when Fernando Tatis Jr. lined out sharply to center.
Rougned Odor replaced Kim in the ninth after his fit of frustration caught up with him.
“My over-competitiveness led to this result,” Kim said.
He added: “I thought it was an empty cooler. In that heated moment, I was not thinking hard enough.”
Darvish climbed the mound on Friday some seven pounds lighter than his last start on June 21.
He wanted to pitch in Pittsburgh. He tried again, to no avail, in Cincinnati. The 36-year-old veteran was understandably rusty, walking the first batter he faced, two more after that, hitting another and exiting a 3-3 game after five innings and 100 pitches.
Darvish had struck out four, walked three and allowed three runs on seven hits.
“I thought I felt pretty good the first two innings,” Darvish said through interpreter Shingo Horie. “But after that it felt like I got a little bit tired easily on the mound.”
His grind included allowing two 62 mph singles in the first inning, including a perfectly placed dribbler between Machado and Xander Bogaerts off the bat of Daniel Vogelbach with the bases loaded.
Lindor added a solo homer in the third inning and Vogelbach tied the game at 3-3 in the fifth with his third single off Darvish.
The Mets’ burly DH also sent a 100 mph single off Darvish’s back in the third, prompting a brief visit from Padres manager Bob Melvin and a Padres trainer.
“A little bit out of sync,” Melvin said. “You know, he was missing with some pitches that normally ... whether it’s backdoor breaking balls or whatever, he was just a little off maybe in his rhythm with being out that long. Gave us five innings, only give up three runs at the time. …
“Good chance to win the game. But probably not his best stuff.”
Source: The San Diego Union-Tribune
