Padres complete winning road trip with win over Pirates, return home at .500

Kevin Acee, The San Diego Union-Tribune on Apr 8, 2026

Published in Baseball

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PITTSBURGH — The San Diego Padres came East and turned around their season before it really even got going.

An 8-2 victory over the Pittsburgh Pirates Wednesday afternoon completed a road trip in which they won four of six, a reversal of the six-game homestand that began 2026.

The teams went back and forth doing nothing offensively before a tit-for-tat in the seventh inning produced six runs, with the Padres up 4-2 at the end of it.

They added four more in the ninth inning before heading home for their next seven games.

Pirates starter Mitch Keller and Padres starter Michael King both got through six scoreless innings before the Padres jumped on reliever Justin Lawrence for four runs in the top of the seventh and the Pirates answered with two runs off King and Kyle Hart in the bottom of the inning.

Jeremiah Estrada stranded a runner in a scoreless eighth with help from left fielder Ramón Laureano making a diving catch for the first out and right fielder Fernando Tatis Jr. making a running catch at the warning track for the third out.

And after the Padres added four runs in the ninth, Mason Miller pitched for the first time as a major leaguer in his hometown and added two strikeouts to his season total.

The two starting pitchers went about their quality outings in opposite manners.

Keller set down the Padres with machine-like efficiency for four innings and held on in his final two. King was behind in counts throughout much of the first four innings before retiring eight consecutive batters to get through the sixth.

The Padres squandered Gavin Sheets’ leadoff double in the second inning. The Pirates made nothing out of Nick Yorke’s double to start the second and Oneil Cruz’s double to start the third.

The difference early was that Keller was throwing strikes at an astonishing rate and quickly working through his innings, while King was laboring.

The Padres had seen 38 pitches through four innings, 28 of them strikes. King was at 65 pitches to that point.

But after his third walk began the bottom of the fourth inning, King got a fly-ball out and his second double play and then worked through his first two 1-2-3 innings.

After threatening against Keller in the fifth and sixth but going hitless in four at-bats with runners in scoring position, the Padres got started in the seventh when shortstop Nick Gonzales dove to stop a hard grounder by Xander Bogaerts but threw wide of first base to put Bogaerts aboard.

A double by Miguel Andujar moved Bogaerts to third base, and a double by Nick Castellanos scored the two runners before Luis Campusano made the first out of the inning.

Jake Cronenworth’s first home run of the season, to the seats beyond right-center field, made it 4-0.

Another error by another Pirates shortstop, Konnor Griffin, put Castellanos aboard to start the ninth before Luis Campusano drove in Bryce Johnson, who replaced Castellanos on first base and stole second.

Hits by Laureano and Tatis, a double steal and another error helped complete the rout.

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