Padres' finish off two-game sweep of Rockies to run winning streak to five
Published in Baseball
SAN DIEGO — The San Diego Padres are getting winning done.
Somehow, some way.
Their pitching quilt is covering innings as well as could possibly be expected. Maybe better.
“Those guys did their job,” manager Craig Stammen said. “They pitched in their lanes, and they really did exceptional. It wasn’t just that they pitched well, but they pitched very well, as good as they can pitch. Pitch like that, we’re going to win a lot of ballgames.”
That is what is happening now, as the Padres extended their longest winning streak in more than three months on Wednesday afternoon.
A day after winning an awesomely awful game by scoring in each of the final five innings, the Padres got all their runs in one inning and let their mound mishmash do its work again in a 3-1 victory over the Colorado Rockies.
“I think how we’re playing right now is the true identity of this club,” Jake Cronenworth said after the Padres’ fifth consecutive victory, their most in a row since they won eight straight from April 8 to 16.
Their surge continued to contribute to a standings shuffle in the National League.
The Padres have over the course of their winning streak gone from having four teams between them and the final wild-card spot to being the first team on the outside of playoff position. They have jumped from four games out to 1 1/2 games behind not only the Diamondbacks but the Phillies.
After the Padres swept the Marlins in Miami over the weekend, the Phillies visited loanDepot park and were swept by the Marlins.
Wednesday was the Pirates’ second straight loss, the St. Louis Cardinals’ third straight and the Washington Nationals’ second in three games. Those three teams and the Marlins are who the Padres have passed since Friday.
There seemed little question when the week began that the Padres would be buyers to some extent at the trade deadline.
The only remaining question is how much president of baseball operations A.J. Preller will be able to improve their roster.
“A.J., I’m sure, is doing what A.J. usually does and is on the phone 24/7,” Cronenworth said. “But we’ve just got to continue to play good baseball and continue to do what we’re doing.”
In particular, Preller’s aim is to bolster a starting rotation that is essentially down to Michael King and Walker Buehler, as the rest of the starting pitchers the team has employed this season are either not on the active roster or have been deployed as part of an 11-man bullpen.
Until what happens by 6 p.m. ET Monday happens, they are grooving with the group.
This was the third all-staff game during the winning streak, and the Padres have allowed a total of five runs in those 27 innings.
Wednesday, it was Kyle Hart for 2 2/3 innings and Griffin Canning for three, Wandy Peralta for two outs and Bradgley Rodriguez for the next two, then Jeremiah Estrada for an inning and Mason Miller for the final one.
The Rockies’ lone run was charged to Peralta, who yielded a bunt single by Willi Castro and a 41 mph single flared the other way off the handle of Tyler Freeman’s bat and got one out to start the seventh inning. Rodriguez replaced Peralta, got an out and then surrendered an RBI single to former Padres catcher Brett Sullivan.
That made it 3-1 and concluded the scoring on the Padres’ least productive offensive day in more than a week.
The Padres got half of their six hits and half of their eight total baserunners in the fourth inning against rookie right-hander Gabriel Hughes, who ended up finishing six innings.
Fernando Tatis Jr. lined a double down the left field line to start the bottom of the first before nine consecutive Padres were set down.
That run ended when Cronenworth led off the fourth inning with a single to right field.
Manny Machado hit an infield single, fielded deep on the dirt and toward the line by Castro at third base, and Hughes hit Ty France in the elbow with a changeup to load the bases with no outs.
The Padres got just one more hit in the inning, an RBI single by Jackson Merrill, but added two more runs on Luis Rengifo’s groundout and Gavin Sheets’ sacrifice fly.
They seemed primed to score more and perhaps get Hughes out of a game before he finished five innings for what would have been the first time.
But a single by Freddy Fermin, walk by Tatis and sacrifice bunt by Jake Cronenworth led to nothing when Machado flied out to shallow left field and Mickey Moniak threw out Fermin trying to tag up and score.
Hughes, who was making his fourth career start and entered the game with a 2.79 ERA, surrendered a single to France to start the sixth. Left-hander Brennan Bernardino and righty Zach Agnos did not allow another Padres batter to reach base.
The Padres hitters had to keep going and going and going in Tuesday’s 8-7 victory, coming back to tie the game three times before walking it off in the ninth.
With Hart working two-plus scoreless innings for the second straight outing for the first time in his career, erstwhile starter Canning stringing together three scoreless innings for just the fourth time in his past nine appearances and a trio of relievers doing what they most often do, what the offense did Wednesday was also enough.
“The offense, you (see) what they’ve done coming out of the break,” Hart said. “It’s been pretty special. I think what you saw today was the combination of the pitching side putting together a good game too. Hopefully we can keep that going.”
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