A RARE SHOW OF POWER
They rough up Twins starter with five home runs to grab big lead
The Padres did something Friday they had not done all season.
They homered five times. They actually had never homered four times in 2022.
And they still had at least three innings in which they could hit more.
Luke Voit and Manny Machado hit two-run homers sandwiched around solo shots by Ha-Seong Kim and Eric Hosmer, and Jorge Alfaro hit a three-run homer in the fifth inning that put the Padres up 10-1 over the Twins at Petco Park.
The uncharacteristic show of
power came against Joe Ryan, the Twins’ best starting pitcher.
Byron Buxton’s 25th home run of the season in the fourth inning was the only run off Padres starter Blake Snell. A single and a walk put runners at first and second with no outs in the top of the fifth before Snell got a strikeout and double-play grounder.
Voit, who in back-to-back games in Detroit this week hit two of the longest balls in the major leagues this season that were not home runs, sent a two-out, two-run homer just
over the wall in left field in the first inning.
Voit added an RBI double in the fifth. Two batters later, Alfaro cleared the right-field wall.
Kim, who had homered once in his previous 217 at-bats, hit a solo shot with two outs in the second inning.
Kim’s homer traveled a projected 393 feet. He had hit five balls farther than that this season, and just three had been home runs. His 426-foot double in Colorado on July 12 was the longest ball put in play by any major leaguer this season — until Voit’s 427foot double in Detroit on Tuesday.
Hosmer’s home run was his third in 92 at-bats. He had gone 125 at-bats without one before that.
Machado, who leads the Padres with 17 homers, was the only player on the team with an OPS over .750 entering
the game. The Twins had five such players.
The Padres entered the game with just 81 home runs, fifth fewest in the major leagues.