San Diego Union-Tribune

PADRES EMPLOY USUAL FORMULA

Hosmer, Machado and strong pitching provide the victory

- BY KEVIN ACEE kevin.acee@sduniontri­bune.com

Manny Machado believes the way he and Eric Hosmer are preparing and playing is setting a tone.

“We’re pushing everybody in this clubhouse to be the best that we possibly can,” Machado said. “If we bring it every single day, everybody else is gonna have to come in and bring it.”

Eventually, he reasons, the rest of the Padres will hit.

“It will click for us,” he said. “And when it does, it’s gonna be dangerous.”

Friday night, Machado and Hosmer got the Padres started, and then it clicked for a couple guys who had not done much this season, and then Machado took care of business again.

What to make of that is an open-ended question.

But it worked Friday, as Yu Darvish went seven innings and Robert Suarez and Steven Wilson closed out a 3-2 victory over the Marlins at Petco Park.

It was the first major league save for Wilson, who pitched the ninth because closer Taylor Rogers had pitched the previous two days and six of the previous 10 days.

Wilson had a little bit of trouble, allowing a hit and issuing a walk, but he escaped the jam with a fly to left to end it.

Manager Bob Melvin mixed up his batting order, looking for anything to get game one or both of them drove in at least one run. They had through Thursday accounted for 36 percent of the Padres’ hits and scored 30 percent of their runs. Thursday night, Machado’s two solo homers were all the scoring the Padres did in a 2-1 victory.

Hosmer and Machado entered Friday with the top two batting averages in the majors. Together, they were batting .375/.452/.609 while the rest of the Padres were batting a combined .186/289/.301.

Trent Grisham, who came into the game batting .159, led off the fifth inning with a triple. He scored on a double by Matt Beaty, who entered batting .086. After two outs, Machado lined a single to left field to score Beaty.

The Marlins, who had lost five straight leading up to Friday, got within a run on Jesus Aguilar’s two-run homer in the sixth.

Darvish allowed five hits, going seven innings for the first time this season.

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