SAN DIEGO — The Padres haven’t merely received each sport they’ve performed at Petco Park this season. They’ve received resoundingly. By means of 11 dwelling video games, their whole margin of victory is 47 runs. They’ve held a lead after 75% % of the house innings they’ve performed. They’ve dominated.
Which made the primary a number of innings on Monday evening really feel a bit unusual. A decent sport in San Diego? A sport the Padres trailed into the late innings?
They received it anyway. Resoundingly.
Fernando Tatis Jr. went deep twice, as San Diego rallied for a 10-4 victory over the Cubs on Monday, marking the membership’s eleventh straight dwelling win to open the season. That’s by far the longest streak in franchise historical past — and tied for the fourth longest within the Majors since not less than 1900. (The Rays at present maintain that report with 14 straight wins at Tropicana Subject to open the 2023 season.)
“Our play is equaling the group, the group is equaling our play — I don’t know which manner you need to have a look at it,” mentioned Padres supervisor Mike Shildt. “You’re speaking a few Monday evening, and this place is jammed and rocking. It means a ton.”
The Padres waited till the late innings for his or her normal fireworks. However these fireworks got here in bunches. San Diego scored twice within the sixth and thrice within the seventh, earlier than capping the evening with a wild four-run eighth that featured back-to-back dwelling runs from Tatis and Luis Arraez.
The third-largest crowd in Petco Park historical past (47,078) reached a crescendo when Arraez launched his second dwelling run of the 12 months, then waited to flip his bat till he was virtually rounding first base. The Padres have been on their strategy to their Main League-leading 14th victory, 11 of which have come at Petco Park.
“It’s particular,” starter Dylan Stop mentioned of the surroundings. “We undoubtedly feed off of it. You’re just about assured a sellout each evening. The followers are excited. We’re excited. It’s about pretty much as good of an environment as you may ask for.”
The house profitable streak stays intact, however the Padres’ shutout streak got here to an finish — at 37 innings — within the fourth, when Stop surrendered Michael Busch’s two-run dwelling run. The streak fell three innings shy of the franchise-record scoreless mark, set in July and August of 1984.
Stop improved upon his poor outing final week towards the A’s, however he wasn’t at his dominant finest, permitting three runs (two earned) over 5 2/3 innings. He exited with the Padres trailing by two. It wouldn’t take lengthy to reverse that deficit.
Manny Machado labored a superb 11-pitch stroll within the backside of the sixth, chasing Cubs starter Jameson Taillon and sparking an onslaught towards the Chicago bullpen.
“It was powerful, man,” mentioned Machado, who fouled off 5 straight 3-2 pitches. “[I was] simply attempting to get on base. And I believe that led to some good issues taking place for our ballclub.”
It certain did. The Padres tied the sport on a pair of RBI infield singles from Jose Iglesias and Jason Heyward later within the body.
An inning later, the Cubs opted to stroll Machado deliberately with first base open, bringing new fan favourite Gavin Sheets to the plate.
With the group chanting “Ho-ly Sheets,” Tatis promptly scampered dwelling with the go-ahead run on Nate Pearson’s wild pitch. Then, Sheets plated two extra with a line-drive single. Petco Park was alive.
“The gang on our facet is completely enormous,” Tatis mentioned. “It feeds us.”
Tatis’ dwelling run an inning later was his second of the evening and moved him right into a tie for many within the Majors with six. Each have been laser beams — low line drives mashed at 108 and 111 mph, respectively, that carried into the primary stage of the left-field seats.
“Classic Tati proper there,” Machado mentioned.
Possibly the house runs have been. But it surely was later identified to Tatis that he’d really been out-bat-flipped by Arraez. He laughed and famous that the character of a line-drive dwelling run doesn’t often lend itself to high quality bat-flipping. Arraez, then again, received to observe a towering, majestic drive that settled into the right-field porch space.
By then, it was secure to start out the now-nightly Petco Park social gathering. The Padres’ bullpen hasn’t relinquished a lead all season, in spite of everything.
That’s often the way it goes. Electrical offense. Glorious protection. Stable beginning pitching. And a lockdown bullpen.
“Each evening, they bring about it,” Shildt mentioned. “They’re hungry.”
