Padres play small ball, get grand slam from Manny Machado, then beat Mets

Kevin Acee, The San Diego Union-Tribune on Sep 17, 2025

Published in Baseball

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NEW YORK — The San Diego Padres are who they are on offense.

They know they are at their best when they accept that and commit to scratching and clawing and taking what the game gives them.

But they also believe they are capable of being more.

They were both on Wednesday. They had to be.

They relied on both small ball and the long ball, twice manufacturing a single run to take leads and then getting four runs in a bunch from a Manny Machado grand slam to take their final lead en route to a 7-4 victory over the Mets.

And if not just in time, it was about time.

“Everybody is watching,” Fernando Tatis Jr. said before the game. “You can see where we need improvement, where we need to make adjustments real quick. We are a good team. We just need to execute.”

They went out and did so expertly — at least early. And then Machado broke a 2-2 tie and put them up for good with his grand slam off Mets starter David Peterson in the fifth inning.

The victory meant the Padres would end the night no worse than two games behind the Dodgers in the National League West, and it kept alive the possibility they could clinch a playoff berth by Saturday.

The Padres sit in the fifth of six NL playoff spots, five games ahead of the Mets and 6 1/2 games clear of the Diamondbacks with 10 games remaining.

The Padres rank second-to-last in the major leagues in home runs and have generally had to rely on stringing together base hits and bases on balls to score this season.

However, their slug has ticked up recently. And they needed almost every bit of the lead Machado’s blast gave them.

The cushion helped them weather a rare short outing by Nick Pivetta, who allowed three home runs for the first time this season and did not make it through five innings for the first time since June and just the fifth time this season.

And it was enough to survive when they stopped executing so well.

They left a run on the field in the sixth inning when Elias Díaz slowed down heading home and did not cross the plate before Luis Arraez was thrown out trying to turn what would have been an RBI double into a single.

And they did not score in the seventh inning after getting two runners on with no outs.

That made for some tense moments after Jeremiah Estrada relieved Adrian Morejón to start the bottom of the seventh and surrendered a lead-off home run to Francisco Alvarez and walked Cedric Mullins.

Estrada got Francisco Lindor to pop out, and Padres manager Mike Shildt went to Mason Miller, who struck out Juan Soto and Pete Alonso.

Both Mets sluggers had homered earlier in the game, and Soto missed tying the game with a second home run by inches when he sent a ball to left field that tailed just foul as it passed the pole the pitch before Miller struck him out.

Ramón Laureano’s solo homer in the ninth inning gave a three-run advantage for closer Robert Suarez to work with in the ninth. He moved into a tie for the MLB lead with his 39th save, ending the game by getting Soto out on a comebacker to the mound with two runners on.

All four of the Mets’ runs came on homers, which is consistent with a team that now ranks fourth in the major leagues in that category.

The Padres got their run in the first inning on a single, a walk, a groundout and Gavin Sheets’ sacrifice fly. After Alonso tied the game in the bottom of the first, the Padres went up again on a single, a groundout and another single.

The lead lasted into the fourth inning when Starling Marte sent a ball over the wall in left field.

After Machado’s grand slam in the fifth — his second of the season and the 14th of his career, the most by any active player — Soto made it 6-3 with a homer in the bottom of the inning.

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