The San Diego Padres won their sixth straight game against the Seattle Mariners behind Gavin Sheets and Lucas Giolito.
The San Diego Padres dominated the Seattle Mariners once again, as a pair of home runs by Gavin Sheets helped the Padres get an 8-3 win, with Lucas Giolito contributing a fine effort his first start for San Diego.
The feature attraction in this one was Giolito, and he was more than up to the top billing. The right-hander had an easy rocking-chair start through the first four innings as he shut down Seattle with mostly weak contact.
The offenses was supplied yet again by Gavin Sheets, who hit a solo homer in the first to give Giolito a 1-0 lead to work with. The Mariners had trouble scoring earlier in this series, and Giolito kept that going by giving up just one hit during his entire outing.
The Padres scratched out another run in the fifth, thanks to the unlikely base-stealing skills of Xander Bogaerts, who walked and stole second, then took off again and took third. Ty France drove him Bogaerts with an opposite field single, and just like that the Padres doubled their lead to 2-0.
San Diego padded that lead in the sixth, courtesy of a two-run bomb by Gavin Sheets. The Padres don’t get a lot of power, but Sheets has been the man lately with his reliability and consistently, and this was the sixth multi-home run game of his career.
The Padres kept hitting after the Sheets homer, as doubles by Manny Machado and Jackson Merrill made it 5-0. Ty France drove in two more with an RBI single to up that count to 7-0.
Giolito came undone in the sixth inning as he walked the bases loaded, and reliever Yuki Matsui couldn’t stop the bleeding as he walked home Seattle’s first run. A pair of sacrifice flies brought in runs to cut the Padres’ lead to 7-3.
Sheets struck again to get back one of those runs after Fernando Tatis Jr. walked, stole second and moved to third on a ground out. Sheet laced a double to right to score Tatis and bring the count to 8-3.
That was where it stayed, thanks to two scoreless innings each from Matsui and Bradgley Rodriguez. Sweeping a season series on May 17 isn’t something you see a lot these days, but the Padres are a resilient bunch who can win in a lot of different ways.
They now head home to face the Los Angeles Dodgers in a three-game series, and all eyes in the baseball world will be on this one with the two teams separated by just a half-game.