The San Diego Padres capitalized on a chance to gain ground in the Marlins with a big win to open their series.
The San Diego Padres opened their three-game series against the Miami Marlins with a 4-2 win, thanks to the heroics of pinch-hitter Luis Regifo, who had a two-run home run in the seventh to put the Padres ahead and keep their fading playoff hopes alive.
This was another survival game for San Diego, as the Padres don’t really have much of a rotation right now. They started German Marquez, but he was quickly pulled after giving up a solo home run to Joe Mack in the second to put the Padres down 1-0.
San Diego quickly got the run back in the second on a sacrifice fly from Jackson Merrill off Marlins starter Ryan Gusto, and the Padres took the lead in the fifth on a single from Manny Machado that scored Xander Bogaerts after he walked and was sacrificed to second by Sung-Mun Song.
That made it 2-1, but the lead didn’t last. A solo home run by Heriberto Hernandez off reliever Kyle Hart in the same inning tied it up, and that set the stage for Rengifo’s heroics. His home run came off Marlins reliever Tyler Zuber, and that left it up to the Padres bullpen to lock down the win.
The bullpen has been stretched beyond thin of late, but Adrian Morejon was able to pitch 1-1/3 innings of scoreless relief, which brought on closer Mason Miller. Miller hasn’t had many save opportunities lately as trade rumors continue to swirl around him, but the closer got his 26th save of the season with an 11-pitch, 1-2-3 inning as he lowered his ERA to 0.84.
The win allowed the Padres to pick up a game on Miami, and they’re now one behind the Marlins in the wild-card race and four games out overall. The Padres still have several teams to hurdle to become true contenders, but this win did stop their recent downward spiral on this pivotal road trip.
The question now is how the Padres will get more wins given the state of their pitching staff. Manager Craig Stammen used six pitchers to get this one, and the Padres will need back-end starter JP Sears to come up big and give them at least five good innings this afternoon in the second game of the series. The Marins will send Eury Perez to the mound, and they’ll be facing a similar issue given that they used seven hurlers in defeat.
