Cardinals outslug Padres en route to 9-7 victory

Kevin Acee, The San Diego Union-Tribune on Jul 24, 2025

Published in Baseball

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ST. LOUIS — Can’t put this one on the offense.

Seven runs will win a game almost 90% of the time in the major leagues.

A sweaty Thursday night did not work out that way for the Padres, as their offense found some potency but their pitchers threw too many pitches that found the seats and the Cardinals outlasted them, 9-7, on an oppressively hot Midwestern night.

The Padres went up 2-0 in the first and were down 7-2 in the second. They never led again, but they certainly made it far more interesting than most games they have played over the past 2 1/2 months.

They scored their first run before they made an out and their second run before they made two outs.

Then they made five straight outs and watched the Cardinals score seven runs.

Then the Padres scored three runs in the third inning before making another out.

The Cardinals extended their lead to 8-5 in the fourth. The Padres got to 8-7 in the fifth. The Cardinals made it 9-7 in the sixth.

Manny Machado’s leadoff single in the ninth gave the Padres their only baserunner in the final three innings.

The end was quite a switch from the start.

The Padres took their first lead in three games on a single by Fernando Tatis Jr. and a double by Luis Arraez at the start of the game, and Jackson Merrill’s one-out single made it 2-0.

The Cardinals cut the Padres’ lead in half in the first inning and then got two-out, three-run homers from Brendan Donovan and Willson Contreras to take a 7-2 lead in the second inning.

The Padres scored eight runs on Sunday in Washington but did not do so once in their 28 games before that.

They scored a total of seven runs the previous three days in Miami.

They had scored five runs in just three of their previous 17 games and just 20 times in their 60 games since May 16.

But that was their total three batters later, as they battled against Cardinals starter Sonny Gray.

Tatis led off the third inning with a home run on a full-count pitch. Arraez followed with a double on a full-count pitch. Machado homered on an 0-2 pitch.

Yu Darvish, making his fourth start after spending the season’s first three months on the injured list with an elbow issue, worked a scoreless third inning. But he departed with one out and a runner on first base in the fourth.

Yukli Matsui got out of the inning with help from Martín Maldonado throwing out Iván Herrera, and the Padres scored twice in the top of the fifth to get within a run.

Merrill led off the inning with a single, went to third on Xander Bogaerts’ double off the wall in right field and scored on Gavin Sheets’ groundout. With Bogaerts on third, Jake Cronenworth struck out before Bryce Johnson grounded a ball to the right side that Contreras, the first baseman, fielded and threw slightly behind Gray as Johnson crossed the bag and Bogaerts scored to make it 8-7.

The teams traded missed opportunities in their next at-bats.

Matsui surrendered a single and walked two batters to load the bases with one out in the bottom of the fifth before striking out Pedro Pagés.

Padres manager Mike Shildt then brought Wandy Peralta into a game with two outs and the bases loaded for the second time in three days, and Peralta again rewarded him by getting Victor Scott II on a groundout.

The Padres proceeded to put two on with one out in the top of the sixth when Arraez walked and Machado singled. But a strikeout by Merrill and a groundout by Bogaerts ended the threat.

Herrera’s solo home run off Peralta in the bottom of the sixth concluded the scoring.