San Diego Union-Tribune (Sunday)
EARLY POWER SURGE
Padres smash 3 HRS in first three innings to rout Cards
The Padres got more pitches to hit on Saturday night, and so they did.
They’re starting to look like themselves, even as they look very little like expected.
Playing again without a good portion of their offense’s core, they routed the Cardinals 13-3 by driving the ball all over Petco Park.
“I just love the way we’re coming together, the way we’re battling, the way we’re competing,” Padres manager Jayce Tingler said. “We believe when we’re playing our game, we can play with anybody in any league.”
Evidently, no matter who “we” is.
By the third inning, the Padres had tied a season high with three home runs — a tworun blast by Tommy Pham in the first inning, a solo shot by Ha-seong Kim in the second and a three-run homer by Austin Nola in the third — to make it 6-0.
By the sixth, they had reached double digits in runs for the third time this season and second time in six games. When Nola drove in two runs with a single off Cardinals infielder Matt Carpenter in the seventh, the Padres had a season high in runs and had tied a season high with 16 hits. Tucupita Marcano’s single off Carpenter in the eighth set a season standard. The 17 hits were the most for the Padres at Petco Park since June 2, 2016.
“We know we’ve got a very good offense,” Tingler said. “… We know that our (best) baseball is in front of us. It’s nice to see over the last week how we’re starting to move the baseball in the zone.”
A night after tying a Petco Park record with 12 walks against five Cardinals pitchers who often weren’t even close to the plate, the Padres faced Adam Wainwright, who was having a fine start to his 16th season.
“He’s probably not going to dance around the zone much,” Tingler said before the game. “… My guess is we’re going to have to square him up. He’s not going to beat himself.”
Not unless you count grooving curveballs in the heart of the zone to Pham and Kim that got yanked to the seats in left field and leaving a first-pitch cutter on the outer half for Nola to poke to the short porch in right field.
The Padres got all sorts of slug from guys who hadn’t been slugging, which other than taking a dozen walks and getting hit by three pitches as happened the night before, is about the precise recipe to win without Eric Hosmer, Wil Myers and Fernando Tatis Jr.
The three players out because of COVID protocols had through this past Sunday accounted for one-third of the Padres’ hits and half of their home runs.
The homers by Pham and Nola were their first of the season. Kim’s homer was his second.
They scored four runs in the sixth inning on a walk by John Andreoli and singles by Trent Grisham, Manny Machado and Patrick Kivlehan, Nola’s double and a groundout by Brian O’grady.
Nola’s two-run single capped a three-run seventh, as he finished with six RBIS.
The Padres got four strong innings from starter Chris Paddack, who made his second start since spending 12 days on the injured list. Six days after throwing 53 pitches over three scoreless innings Sunday in San Francisco, Paddack took 83 pitches to get through four innings Saturday.
After Paddack allowed only a run (on Yadier Molina’s fourth-inning homer) and two singles and a walk, Miguel Diaz replaced him to start the fifth inning and pitched the next two innings. Nolan Arenado’s solo homer with one out in the sixth is the only run Diaz has allowed in eight innings this season.
Harrison Bader’s homer leading off the seventh inning against Pierce Johnson gave the Cardinals their final run.
Nabil Crismatt threw two scoreless innings at the finish.
The Padres scored 11 runs on a season-high 16 hits last Sunday in San Francisco. Their game
Monday against the Rockies was postponed by a storm in Denver, and they learned late that night Tatis had tested positive for COVID and Jurickson Profar and Jorge Mateo had been found to be in close contact with him. All three were placed on the IL.
The next night, in the middle of an 8-1 victory over the Rockies, Hosmer and Myers were pulled. A positive test had been returned on Myers, and Hosmer was found to have been in close contact.
Hosmer, Myers and
Tatis have combined for 17 home runs and 31 extrabase hits.
Without that trio, the Padres split a doubleheader with the Rockies on Wednesday and have taken the first two from the Cardinals.
“It’s been a blast everybody coming together, fighting and scrapping for everything we get,” Tingler said Saturday afternoon.
His team went out and did more blasting than scrapping.