CAPITOL COMEBACK
Padres down to final out when Odor belts winning home run
WASHINGTON
Rougned Odor is evidently the hero the Padres have been waiting for.
If May is too early to assess that he saved a season, then it can suffice that his three-run homer with two outs in the ninth inning Thursday saved the Padres from themselves.
“We needed that game big-time,” Juan Soto said.
The Padres were one out away from dropping a sixth consecutive series when Odor whipped a line drive down the right-field line and into the home bullpen, providing the deciding runs in an 8-6 victory over the Nationals.
“Somebody’s got to start it,” Odor said. “That guy is me. And now we go.”
Thursday was as wild a roller coaster as the Padres have ridden (and their fans have endured) all season, accelerating from merely a cruise to a much-needed victory to a steep drop to what would have been arguably the worst loss of the year to a thrilling finish that they hope will be recalled as a turning point.
“It means a lot,” said
Odor, who was 2-for-5 with 5 RBIs Thursday and has played a significant role in each of the Padres’ three victories in their past four games. “... We’ve got plenty of games, and we believe in each other. We will believe in everybody in this clubhouse, and we’re ready to go.”
The Padres fell behind after a farcical first inning. They lost a key player for the rest of the game and at least another day or two. They took the lead, they failed to add on, they added on. They gave up a four-run advantage. They failed some more.
And then Odor, who has been starting regularly with Manny Machado on the in
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jured list, lined a 98.6 mph fastball over the right-field wall before Josh Hader worked a perfect bottom of the ninth for his second save of the series and 13th of the season.
The Padres’ path to just their fifth win in 17 games was circuitous, tense, at times silly and painful.
The Nationals took a 1-0 lead in a madcap manner.
Lane Thomas led off the bottom of the first inning with a 100.3 line drive to HaSeong Kim at third base. Kim appeared to make the catch after diving to his left, but the ball fell to the dirt as Kim’s glove hit the ground. Kim immediately got up and threw to first base, which was uncovered, because Cronenworth thought Kim had caught the ball.
Thomas, who had not been running hard thinking he had lined out, was awarded second base when the ball sailed into a photo well.
Thomas went to third on a wild pitch and scored on a one-out single by Joey Meneses.
The Padres’ offense got started after an unfortunate incident in the second inning.
Kim was helped off the field, supported on each side by athletic trainers Ben Fraser and Ricky Huerta, after fouling a ball off his left knee. X-rays were negative, the team said, but Kim is expected to miss at least today’s game at Yankee Stadium.
Five pitches after Kim departed, the Padres led.
Brandon Dixon entered the game with a 1-1 count, took a ball and then flared a
single into shallow left field.
Trent Grisham followed by sending a 1-1 fastball the other way and just over the left-field wall to give the Padres a 2-1 lead.
They added three runs in the fifth inning on Fernando Tatis Jr.’s single, a one-out walk by Soto, an RBI single by Xander Bogaerts and Odor’s two-run double with two outs.
But they also left the bases loaded in the third inning after getting them that way with no outs, continuing a season-long trend of failure with runners in scoring position that almost sank them again late in Thursday’s game.
And as late afternoon turned to evening, it became yet another game in which the Padres could not get all
the facets of their team together, as two members of what has been the major leagues’ best bullpen this month didn’t record an out in the seventh inning until five runs had scored.
The Nationals scored a run on two singles and a double off Tim Hill before he was lifted for Nick Martinez, who entered with runners at second and third and the tying run at the plate.
Four singles and an error later, the Padres trailed 6-5. It was tied for the largest lead blown by the Padres this season.
Two of the singles were hard hits off infielders’ gloves, and Martinez helped a run home with a throwing error on a bunt single.
After Dixon led off the eighth inning with a double, Grisham lined a bunt to third base and pinch-hitter Nelson Cruz and Tatis both struck out.
Jake Cronenworth and Soto led off the ninth with singles before Bogaerts and Carpenter struck out.
The Padres had to that point hit .182 with runners in scoring position this season and were 2-for-15 with runners in scoring position on the day.
Another disappointing ending seemed almost inevitable.
Except, it was Odor who strutted to the plate.
He had a three-run double with two outs in the first inning of Sunday’s victory over the Red Sox and here on Tuesday went 1-for-2 with a walk and a run. He homered and scored twice in Wednesday’s loss. His five RBIs Thursday gave him 11 over the past four games.
“We’ve been needing a couple of swings like that,” manager Bob Melvin said. “So not only did we get to cash in on some runners in scoring position early in the game, we did, obviously, late as well. And Odor has had a lot to do with that lately. You feel good when he’s at the plate right now. … Right now he’s swinging a hot bat for us and came up at the right time.”