Padres stay unbeaten with a slew of runs late

Kevin Acee, The San Diego Union-Tribune on Apr 2, 2025

Published in Baseball

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The Padres waited. Not exactly patiently, but effectively.

Then they pounced. Then their bullpen took over again.

And now they are 6-0.

They beat the Guardians 7-0 on Tuesday night at Petco Park, their third shutout in four games, to extend the best beginning to a season in club history.

After they squandered their lead-off batter reaching base in the first three innings, Jackson Merrill’s first home run of the season began a run of five straight innings in which the Padres scored.

They once again got a little bit of everything from all over the roster, finally rewarding Michael King for a dominant (though not extensive) bounceback start.

King followed up a 2⅔-inning outing on opening day by striking out 11 in five scoreless innings. Just four Guardians reached base and just one reached second base against him.

King struck out six consecutive batters between the first and third innings. A single and hit batter followed before he ended the inning on a fly ball, and he finished off his night by retiring six of the next seven batters. He struck out the final two batters in the fourth inning and the final three in the fifth.

He was done after 88 pitches, and four relievers (Jeremiah Estrada, Yuki Matsui, Jsson Adam and Omr Cruz) closed out the Guardians to extend the bullpen’s scoreless streak to 23 innings.

The Padres took awhile to make sure the good pitching would lead to a good result.

Their first batter reached base in the first five innings. The first three of those innings ended quickly and fruitlessly, and Guardians left-hander Logan Allen had thrown just 36 pitches to that point.

Finally, in the fourth, Merrill broke through. In the fifth, the Padres manufactured a pair of runs to go up 3-0. They waited until their second batter to get someone but added another run on in the sixth. A lead-off runner in the seventh led two runs. Help from a dropped pop-up helped the Padres to their final run in the eighth.

Fernando Tatis Jr. led off the bottom of the first with an eight-pitch walk. Two pitches later, the inning was over, as Luis Arraez popped a bunt into the air and Manny Machado grounded out on the first pitch each saw from Guardians left-hander Logan Allen.

Xander Bogaerts singled past second baseman Gabriel Arias to start the second. But Merrill ended a three-pitch at-bat with a grounder up the middle that resulted in a double play, and Yuli Gurriel chased a 2-1 sinker out of the zone on a pop-up to first base.

The third brought even a harsher emptiness, as Jose Iglesias’ walk was followed by Brandon Lockwood’s double to give the Padres runners at second and third with no outs. The inning ended so quickly (eight pitches to three batters) it could hardly be called a rally, as Elías Díaz grounded out to first base, Iglesias was thrown out at home on Tatis’ grounder to shortstop and Arraez grounded out to second.

The fourth appeared that it would go the same route when Machado lined a single to left and Bogaerts grounded into a double play.

It only took one pitch for Merrill to make sure another opportunity was not fully squandered, as he launched a cutter low and on the inner portion of the plate a projected 411 feet toward right-center field and into the sea of humanity standing on the Craft Pier.

Iglesias led off the fifth by getting his first hit with the Padres, Lockridge followed with a walk, and both runners moved over on a sacrifice bunt by Diaz. Tatis drove in Iglesias with a fly ball to center field, and Arraez drove in Lockridge with a single.

One-out walks by Merrill and Gurriel ended Allen’s night before Jake Cronenworth worked an 0-2 count into a full count and then lined the ninth pitch he saw from reliever Paul Sewald into center field to score Merrill.

The Padres’ final two runs came when they got one hit in the seventh.

Tatis walked again to start the inning, stole second and went to third on Arraez’s groundout to the right side. Machado walked and stole second, and he and Tatis moved up a base on Bogaerts’ fielder’s choice grounder.

Machado then scored on a strikeout by Merrill when Bogaerts took off for second on the pitch and Guardians catcher Bo Naylor’s throw bounced into center field.

Guardians third baseman José Ramirez dropped a pop-up in the eighth, which gave the Padres an extra out and helped Cronenworth, who had led off with a single, score on a groundout by Tatis.