FRIARS’ FUTURE IS NOW
Padres top former prospects who came over in trade for Soto, who has three hits
It will be years before it can be properly debated and possibly determined whether one of the biggest trade- deadline deals in MLB history was won by the Padres or the Nationals.
The Padres simply did what they could Tuesday, winning a game in which three of the men involved in that massive trade played big roles.
In taking the opener of a nine-game road trip in which they desperately need to do well, the Padres hit two home runs off their former top prospect and survived a two-run homer by their former top prospect to beat the Nationals 7-4.
Helping them do so was Juan Soto, who was 3-for-3 with a solo homer and a walk in his second trip back to Nationals Park to play his former team.
For those not familiar with how the Padres mortgaged the future with a trade to acquire Soto last August, that is two different former No.1 prospects they faced Tuesday. Left-hander MacKenzie Gore, the 24-yearold who was the Padres’ first-round pick in 2017 and their top prospect from 2019-21, started for the Nationals and went 42⁄3 innings. He departed having thrown 103 pitches and allowed three runs on Xander Bogaerts’ two-run homer in the first inning and Brandon Dixon’s solo homer leading off the fourth.
“It was fun,” Gore said. “They’re good. They had good at-bats. … This wasn’t about me. This was about trying to come in here and win a game. But it was fun. When you know guys, it is fun to compete against them.”
CJ Abrams, the 22-year-old shortstop who was the Padres’ first-round pick in 2019 and their top prospect in 2022, homered off Yu Darvish with two outs in the fifth inning to get the Nationals to 3-2. That was followed by a game-tying home run by Lane Thomas.
“It was fun playing against former team
mates and friends,” Abrams said.
Gore and Abrams were part of a package of six players, which also included No. 1 prospect Robert Hassell III, the Padres sent to Washington to get Soto and Josh Bell at last year’s trade deadline.
Soto, who began his career with the Nationals and was a big part of their 2019 World Series championship, was given as rousing of an ovation as 21,438 souls can give before his first at-bat Tuesday and responded by tipping his cap in salute. He then went about making himself at home.
“It was a little different,” Soto said in comparing this series with the one he played here with the Padres less than two weeks after the Aug. 2 trade. “Definitely last year was a little bit more emotional. This year was emotional. But it was more like happy. I feel more happy instead of being sad about being traded.”
Abrams acknowledged his home run had a little “extra sauce on it,” though he and Gore both attempted to downplay the importance of the meeting.
“Didn’t go our way,” Abrams said. “But we’ll get them tomorrow.”
It is impossible to know what the Padres (22-26) will do from day to day given their uneven performances so much of this season.
Tuesday’s victory was their second in a row. They had won just two of their 13 games leading up to this mini-streak.
A power surge Tuesday made up for another night of futility with runners in scoring position. The Padres were hitless (0-for-9) in that circumstance for the 18th time in 48 games and are batting an MLB-low .184 with runners in scoring position this season.
They have gone 1-for-19 with runners in scoring position over their past two games and still scored 14 runs. It is the first time this season they have scored more than six runs in successive
games.
“Just hit yourself in,” a smiling Jake Cronenworth
said.
Cronenworth had the last of the Padres’ four homers,
their second most in a game this season, trailing only the six they hit April 29 in the thin
air 7,349 feet above sea level in Mexico City.
The Padres regained the lead in Tuesday’s sixth inning when Rougned Odor tagged up and scored on a shallow fly ball that likely would have turned into a double play had it not been inexplicably cut off by Nationals first baseman Dominic Smith.
Soto provided what ended up being the deciding run when he led off the seventh with a 441-foot homer to center field. Bogaerts followed with a single before Cronenworth’s homer made it 7-3.
Darvish allowed three runs in six innings. Tim Hill pitched a scoreless seventh before the Nationals scored a run off Nick Martinez in the eighth. Josh Hader worked the ninth for his 12th save.
“We know we’re capable of doing these things,” manager Bob Melvin said. “Good to see us backing up two games in a row.”