Padres split crucial series with Diamondbacks

Kevin Acee, The San Diego Union-Tribune on Aug 7, 2026

Published in Baseball

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PHOENIX — Thursday night was important. Big. Huge.

But then the magnitude also shrunk in the shadow of the 46 games that remain.

“Uh, yeah, probably,” San Diego Padres manager Craig Stammen said Thursday afternoon when asked if he viewed that night’s game as having added consequence. “I mean, right now, the space that we’re in, we’re two games behind these guys. So the best way to get closer is to beat them. So I think that’s the No. 1 priority today.”

The Padres needed to beat the Arizona Diamondbacks in the finale of their four-game series to get within a game of the final National League playoff spot.

To put it in a more dire context: they needed to win to not fall three games behind the Diamondbacks, who hold that No.6 seed.

In a game that had about all the tension a contest on Aug. 6 could, the Padres did beat the Diamondbacks 5-1 at Chase Field.

Some runs left on the field early did not come back to haunt the Padres, as they added on midgame and turned the game over to their rested bullpen.

Padres starter Walker Buehler had thrown 76 pitches through four innings when Stammen turned the game over to his rested bullpen with the top of the order coming up.

The Diamondbacks would get two baserunners in the final five innings.

Bradgley Rodriguez, who had thrown nine pitches in the series’ first three games, took over in the fifth and retired all six batters he faced.

Jeremiah Estrada, who threw seven pitches here Monday, took over with the four-run lead and worked a 1-2-3 seventh. Adrian Morejón, who had not pitched since Sunday, struck out the side around a two-out single. Mason Miller, who had not pitched since Saturday, allowed a two-out single in the ninth before finishing the game.

The Padres chased Diamondbacks starter Kohl Drake in the fourth inning, but they left runs on the field against the rookie left-hander.

When Luis Rengifo followed Fernando Tatis Jr.’s leadoff double by making it safely to first base on what he intended to be a sacrifice bunt, it seemed the Padres might be headed toward a big first inning. But the Padres’ lone run scored on Manny Machado’s double play grounder. In that inning, Jackson Merrill followed a double by Ty France by striking out.

Two Diamondbacks outfielders helped Drake in a 1-2-3 the second inning — right fielder Corbin Carroll by sliding at the end of a 39-foot dash to grab a sinking line drive by Xander Bogaerts for the first out and center fielder Ryan Waldschmidt running 85 feet and leaping in front of the wall to take away extra bases from Gavin Sheets for the second out before Freddy Fermin’s routine fly out.

Machado and the Padres got a break in the third, and they turned it into an extra run.

After Jake Cronenworth was hit by a pitch and Tatis walked, Rengifo again reached on a bunt, this time loading the bases with no outs.

Machado then hit another grounder to shortstop Geraldo Perdomo that almost certainly would have been a double play had Perdomo not bobbled the ball before recovering and throwing to first base just in time to get one out.

That scored Cronenworth, and Tatis came in on Ty France’s fly ball that made it 3-0.

Buehler sprayed pitches just outside the strike zone in the first inning, and the Diamondbacks put a couple balls in play extremely hard. But after a two-out double and a walk, he retired the next five batters he faced.

The Diamondback got their first run when Carroll’s defensive swing on an inside cutter rolled the other way to an unmanned hole at third base with two outs in the bottom of the third. After Carroll’s 57 mph double, a single by Gabriel Moreno brought him home to make it 3-1.

The Padres got that run back in the sixth against Jonathan Loáisiga when Merrill singled and Bogaerts walked at the start and Fermin singled in Merrill.

They got the lead to 5-1 in the next inning when Machado drew a walk, went to second on a wild pitch, to third on a fly ball to center field by France and scored on Merrill’s single.