Padres patch together series-clinching victory over Marlins

Kevin Acee, The San Diego Union-Tribune on Jul 25, 2026

Published in Baseball

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MIAMI — It has come to this.

And that will be fine with the Padres, as long as it keeps going like this.

Their quilt of a pitching staff is getting the job done, and the offense is cobbling together crucial hits.

That is how the first two games against the Marlins have gone, at least, which is better than what was happening the first seven games on the seemingly interminable and extremely crucial trip that concludes Sunday.

A 7-2 victory over the Marlins on Saturday clinched the Padres’ second series win in nearly a month and got them within three games of the National League’s final wild-card spot.

The victory, in which the Padres used three pitchers who at various times have been part of their starting rotation, made them 4-5 on this three-city trek that began the season’s second half.

They are doing things a bit differently now.

Unable to rely on more than a couple starters most of the season, they have tried different workarounds, using an opener in nine games and in several other games pulling their starter before he faced batters a third time.

At least in part because the offense was not supplying runs early in games, those measures didn’t produce the results they hoped.

So now they are going full staff.

Randy Vásquez, who has started 16 games this season, allowed one run while getting the first eight outs. JP Sears, initially scheduled to make his sixth start of the season on Saturday, took down the next 10 outs.

Reliever Yuki Matsui worked a 1-2-3 seventh. Adrian Morejón was warming up when the Padres scored three runs in the eighth, prompting manager Craig Stammen to turn to Matt Waldron, who started his first three big league games this season and worked behind an opener in his next two, to finish it off.

On Friday, Germán Márquez was pulled with one out in the third inning after facing 12 batters and throwing 37 pitches. Kyle Hart, who has not started this season but did last year, got the game to the fifth before the bullpen closed out a 4-2 victory.

In handing the Marlins their 11th straight loss, the Padres on Saturday scored three runs in seven innings against Eury Perez, who had a 1.14 ERA in his previous seven starts, and three against Dax Fulton in the eighth.

Both starting pitchers got out of jams early.

Vásquez got himself in trouble when he walked the first two batters he faced before ending the first inning with a double-play grounder and a fly ball out.

Jackson Merrill’s first double since June 24, with one out in the second inning, was followed by a Luis Rengifo single. But Merrill had to wait to see if the sharp grounder to the left side got through and only ended up at third base.

He was thrown out at home when Gavin Sheets hit a grounder to shortstop Otto Lopez, who was playing in almost on the turf, and Xander Bogaerts stranded Rengifo at third base with a groundout.

Some fortunate bounced went the Padres’ way in the third inning, one helping them extend an inning and score two runs and the other helping them to an out.

In the top of the third, after Jake Cronenworth’s two-out single, Manny Machado tried to check a swing but instead got enough of the ball to have it sail just beyond the infield and bounce into foul territory. His half-swing double moved Cronenworth to third base and had both in position to score when Ty France lined the next pitch into left field.

Vásquez’s first pitch in the bottom of the third grazed No.8 hitter Esteury Ruiz’s elbow before Jakob Marsee lined a ball into right field to put runners at the corners with no outs.

Lopez’s fly ball to right field was caught by Sheets, whose throw home bounced past Fermin and then off the backstop and into the glove of Vásquez, who threw to second base in time to get Marsee trying to advance.

Sears navigated danger at the bottom of the order in the fifth inning when Ruiz singles and Marsee walked with two outs before Otto Lopez, who entered the game with a National League-leading .330 batting average, grounded out.

Merrill led off the seventh with a double, and the Padres got him home this time on fly balls by Rengifo and Sheets to increase their lead to 3-1.

It became 6-1 when France drove in another run with a single and Jase Bowen drove in two with a bases-loaded single in the eighth.

After the Marlins scored in the bottom of the eighth, Mason Miller was warming up at the start of the ninth. But he sat down when the Padres added a run on a Fernando Tatis Jr.’s walk, a wild pitch and a single by Cronenworth.