Padres Pounded By Rays, 9-4, In Rough Start To Road Trip

The San Diego Padres got their latest road trip off to a tough start against the Tampa Bay Rays as they dropped the first game, 9-4, as the Rays broke the game open with a five-run fifth off Casey Mize and romped to the win after that. 

The Rays struck first in the third inning on an opposite-field solo homer from Yandy Diaz off Mize to make it 1-0. The game then got away from Mize completely in the next inning, though, when the Rays rallied for five runs to pile up a  6-0 lead. 

The inning started when Mize hit Junior Caminero with a pitch, and Chandler Simpson reached on a fielder’s choice that was fielded by Mize, who then made a throwing error. That got Caminero to third, and Simpson stole second. 

A grounder to first by Cedric Mullens got the second run home, and Simpson came home  via a wild pitch. That made it 3-0, and Jorge Mateo upped the count with a sacrifice fly to get home another run. Singles by Taylor Walls and Diaz made got two more home to put the Padres down big at 6-0. 

The Padres came back with a pair of runs off Rays starter Shane McClanahan, but this was a rally that could have been bigger. San Diego loaded the bases with nobody out, but all they could manage were forceouts from Freddy Fermin and Jake Cronenworth to make it 6-2. 

The scoring continued back and forth in the bottom of the inning as the Rays added to their lead with an RBI single from Jonny DeLuca to make it 7-2, but the Padres got two back on a home run from Ty France to make it 7-4. 

The Rays kept scoring, however, as they added single runs in the sixth and seventh to make it 9-4. The run in the sixth came via another RBI single from Caminero, and Mullins added a solo homer to finish off the scoring. 

The Rays got some solid relief work in the late frames to hold down the Padres and finish it off, with Manuel Rodriguez, Kevin Kelly and Steven Matz doing the honors. 

The Padres were left to wait for the late action from the Left Coast to see if the win will hurt them in the wild card standings, and they’ll send Walker Buehler to the mound against Nick Martinez tomorrow afternoon to try to even up the series at 1-1.