MORE WEIRD STUFF
Paddack seems fine as Padres win here as the visiting team
Shortly after 6 p.m. on the night this Padres season got just a little weirder, Petco Park public address announcer Alex Miniak said, “Welcome to tonight's game featuring the San Diego Padres as the visiting team and the Seattle Mariners as the home team.”
He then introduced the Padres lineup first, with his usual inflection but perhaps slightly muted in the emphasis.
(Wil Myers instead of WILLL MYERS.)
Later, as the Mariners ran onto the field, Miniak said, “Ladies and Gentlemen, the Seattle Mariners.”
At that moment, Fernando Tatis Jr. prepared to lead off the top of the first inning.
On a night they acted as the visitors but were officially the home team in the opener of a series relocated from Seattle due to the smoky air enveloping the Pacific Northwest, the Padres beat the Mariners 6-1.
The win dropped the Padres' magic number for clinching their first playoff spot since 2006 to two, meaning it could happen
tonight. Their magic number for clinching second place over the Giants in the NL West was reduced to three when San Francisco lost to Oakland.
The game was not just unique but significant, as Tommy Pham looked strong in his return from the injured list and Chris Paddack was dominant for six innings.
Manny Machado drove in four runs with two homers. His 412-foot shot in the fourth accounted for three of the Padres' four runs that inning. His home run in the ninth inning was his 16th of the season, tied with the Dodgers' Mookie Betts for the National League lead.
Pham missed the previous 28 games after fracturing the hamate bone of his left hand on Aug. 16. He singled and scored in the fourth inning and also walked. His two outs were stung — a 98 mph groundout and a 99 mph fly out to the warning track in right field.
Paddack, who left his Sept. 10 start after two innings due to a sprained ankle, allowed one hit and walked two. Between Evan White's infield single leading off the third inning and Dylan Moore's two-out walk in the sixth, Paddack retired 11 straight batters.
White's home run in the eighth off Pierce Johnson would give Seattle its only run.
Paddack entered Friday's game with a 4.74 ERA and succeeded against the Mariners doing something he had not done enough this season — locating his fastball low, as well as elsewhere around the strike zone.
The Padres were officially the home team Friday and wore their home uniforms but batted first in each inning.
While mass rescheduling across MLB meant this occurred elsewhere several times this season, Friday was the first time the Padres had ever batted first in their home ballpark.
Presuming the next five games are played as scheduled — nothing is certain in 2020 — the Padres' 14-game homestand will be their longest since they played 14 straight at Qualcomm Stadium in 1998.
“This year has been crazy,” Padres manager Jayce Tingler said. “We've had to adapt to a lot of things. I don't think there's too much being thrown our way that's really surprising us anymore.”
How could there be? Add to the uniqueness that the Padres now have a chance, either this weekend
or in two games against the Angels, to celebrate at home their clinching the franchise's first playoff berth since 2006.
It would only seem fitting the Mariners were somehow involved in that significant moment.
They have been part of so much of the Padres' story of this season.
Just four days before the teams swapped seven players, the Mariners voted to not play the teams' scheduled game Aug. 26 as a protest of ongoing social injustice.
That game was made up as part of a doubleheader the next day. Mariners catcher Austin Nola went 5for-9 with a home run and three walks in that threegame series.
On Aug. 30, Nola was traded to the Padres as the centerpiece (from the Padres' perspective) in a deal that sent Ty France, Luis Torrens, Andres Muñoz and Taylor Trammell to Seattle and brought Nola and relievers Austin Adams and Dan Altavilla to San Diego.
The next day, the Padres acquired reliever Taylor Williams from the Mariners for minor league pitcher Matt Brash.