Late-game implosion costs Padres sweep in Mexico City Series

Kevin Acee, The San Diego Union-Tribune on Apr 26, 2026

Published in Baseball

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MEXICO CITY — The San Diego Padres had it done to them this time.

An easy, breezy Sunday turned dark in the seventh inning, when a couple slowly rolled singles, a bungled play at second base, a grand slam, two doubles and a walk turned a five-run lead into a two-run deficit.

The Arizona Diamondbacks scored six runs in that inning off relievers David Morgan and Bradgley Rodriguez and added three more with help from a base-loaded triple in the eighth for a 12-7 victory in Sunday’s finale of the teams’ two-game series at Estadio Alfredo Harp Helú.

To that point, it had seemed the Padres would roll to a relatively by-the-book victory at 7,350 feet above sea level, one in which Manny Machado hit two home runs and Luis Campusano had a couple extra-base hits and Michael King mostly dominated for six innings.

A day after their fifth comeback from four or more runs down and their ninth victory decided by a run scored in the seventh inning or later, the Padres led from the start on Sunday.

A 10-day trip that began down the road from Disneyland’s Matterhorn and took them to two actual mountain ranges — in Denver and Mexico City — was still a success at 5-3.

It just didn’t feel that way in the moment after the Padres got so close to winning their seventh consecutive series and improving to 19-8, which would have tied them with the 1998 squad for the best 27-game start in franchise history.

The loss also dropped them from their perch atop Major League Baseball’s standings, as they now have the league’s second-best record behind the Atlanta Braves (20-9). With exactly one-sixth of the season complete, the Padres lead the Los Angeles Dodgers (19-9) by a half-game in the National League West.

Before they had the ending turned around on them by the Diamondbacks, the Padres flipped the script Sunday.

They went into the game having tied for the fewest runs in the first three innings of games and having been outscored 41-24 in the first third of games this season.

They led 1-0 after two innings and 3-0 after three. Their lead was 6-0 in the fifth and 7-1 in the sixth.

The Padres began wearing down Diamondbacks starter Ryne Nelson in the second inning, when he threw 28 pitches and the Padres scored on singles by Ramón Laureano and Gavin Sheets and a double by Luis Campusano.

After Tatis worked a one-out walk and Jackson Merrill flied out on the ninth pitch of his at-bat, Machado stepped to the plate and lined the first pitch he saw, a cutter down the middle, 436 feet to left center to make it 3-0 in the third.

Machado doubled that lead in the fifth with a home run that sliced through the thin air, the other way to right field at a relatively paltry 96.1 mph — 8.5 mph slower and much higher than his first homer.

Jose Fernandez hit the first of Arizona’s two solo homers against King in the bottom of the fifth before Campusano got that run back with a solo homer off Kevin Ginkel in the sixth.

Ildemargo Vargas led off the sixth inning with a very at-altitude home run, sending a 90.9 mph fly ball down the right-field line and over the wall to cut the Padres’ lead to 7-2.

King retired the next three batters to finish his third quality start in his last three outings.

Morgan took over for him in the seventh, and got a quick out before successive soft singles by Fernandez and Nolan Arenado the other way through the right side.

Alek Thomas followed by bouncing a ball in front of the plate and up the middle toward Bogaerts, the shortstop, who was standing slightly to the right field side of the bag. But second baseman Jake Cronenworth ran up, bounced off Bogaerts as he fielded the ball and then lunged to touch the bag with his glove.

Arenado was called safe, a call that was close but not challenged by the Padres.

With the bases loaded, Tim Tawa pulled a 1-0 sinker in the heart of the strike zone down the left-field line for a grand slam that got the Diamondbacks to within a run.

They would score twice more off Rodriguez — on a double by Vargas, a two-out walk by Corbin Carroll and a double grounded by Gurriel just inside third base.

Ron Marinaccio was meant to keep the deficit at one run in the bottom of the eighth, with the top of the Padres’ order due up. But the Diamondbacks greeted him with three consecutive singles before he made an out. Vargas then tripled on a ball that bounced eight feet in front of the plate and then sailed down the right-field line. A single by Ketel Marte made it 12-7 and ended Marinaccio’s day.

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