PADRES WAKE UP EARLY TO GAIN SPLIT
Road trip ends at 5-2 as bats come alive in first inning vs. Bucs
It was 44 degrees and gray when the first pitch was thrown. The sun peeked from behind the high clouds for just a bit in the middle innings, and it never got warmer than 46 on the banks of the Allegheny River on Thursday.
But just in time for their first series of the season against the Dodgers, the Padres heated up.
“This was a must-win game,” third baseman Manny Machado said in his postgame interview on Bally Sports San Diego. “We came out strong.”
Well, if that’s how they felt 14 games into the season, they responded with aplomb.
The Padres began the early afternoon game by doing everything on offense they had not done the previous two nights, hitting a home run, three doubles and a single and going 3for-5 with runners in scoring position in the first inning.
That staked Chris Paddack to a four-run advantage as he walked to the mound for the first time. The lead was never less than that, and Paddack was able to make it through five innings for the first time this season as the Padres earned a split of the four-game series by beating the Pirates 8-3 at PNC Park.
“When you get a couple runs in the first inning, it builds confidence going out and attacking hitters,” Paddack said. “… Our game plan was to stay aggressive against their aggressive hitters. That just made it that much easier.”
A sweep in Texas and win the first night here were followed by two losses in which the Padres went 2-for-20 with runners in scoring position. By closing with a victory, though, they finished 5-2 on the trip, their best winning percentage (.714) on a road swing of at least seven games since 2006.
“To end up 5-2 and to see some of the at-bats today, squaring up balls, hopefully we can get that momentum going,” manager Jayce Tingler said.
“That was the goal today, just win, make it a good road trip — overall, great trip and get the bats going before heading back home,” Eric Hosmer said.
Machado’s home run and doubles by Hosmer, Jake Cronenworth and Tucupita Marcano comprised the first time the Padres had four extra-base hits in the first inning of a game since 2007.
Hosmer’s two-run single in the second inning was the Padres’ first hit in 13 at-bats since opening day with the bases loaded. Tuesday, they grounded out three times with the bases loaded.
They finished the day 4for-11 with runners in scoring position, halting a run of futility in which they were 13-for-77 with runners on second and/or third base over the previous 10 games.
“We all felt a day like this coming,” Hosmer said. “… We just kept with our approach, kept with our game plan, trusting in what we’re doing, and we had a feeling there would be a day coming like this.”
While it was only a matter of time before the offense performed as expected, Thursday’s most positive development in the longterm context was perhaps Paddack, after going four innings in both his first two starts, navigating five against the Pirates.
Following a 38-pitch second inning in which he allowed a run, he made it through the third and fourth in just 24 more. Then, despite yielding a single and double with one out, Paddack was almost through the fifth without allowing a run when a tailing line drive bounced off Marcano’s glove in right field and allowed two unearned runs to score. Paddack ended the inning by getting a groundout.
“It got away from him a little bit in the second, but I liked the way he was able to reel it back in,” Tingler said. “And in the fifth inning, he
had to get more than three outs. For him to bear down and get it done and pick us up. I thought that was huge.”
Paddack lasting as he did and Craig Stammen earning a three-inning save helped spell a bullpen that had thrown 282⁄3 innings in the previous five games and 131⁄3
in just the middle two games here.
To have gone through multiple other relievers could have had detrimental consequences, considering rookie Ryan Weathers will make his first major league start tonight against the Dodgers. Weathers threw 64 pitches in his final spring
training game March 26 and has thrown a total of 80 pitches in his three appearances (six innings) this season.
What the offense did, driving in runs and hitting almost as many balls at 100 mph (nine) as they did the previous two days combined (11), also allowed for an exhale.
“A day like this heading into a big series is certainly going to help us,” Hosmer said. “… Just a good day overall, a good road trip, get on this long flight and be ready to go for this homestand.”