Padres bounce back, open series against Reds with shutout win

Kevin Acee, The San Diego Union-Tribune on Aug 31, 2026

Published in Baseball

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CINCINNATI — The San Diego Padres got another grinding quality start from Michael King and a lot of hits from a lot of hitters on Monday night.

Nothing strange happened.

They just beat the Cincinnati Reds 5-0 to stop a skid at three games and make sure they at least did not lose ground in the National League playoff race.

Whether they would remain a half-game behind the Diamondbacks or gain possession of the final wild-card spot was dependent on how the Diamondbacks fared against the Phillies later Monday night in Arizona.

What the Padres did was go out and play like they believed they had for much of the three crazy games they lost to the Tampa Bay Rays on the first half of this trip.

“I don’t think anybody is batting an eye over that series,” Jake Cronenworth said before the game. “We have three wild plays three games in a row that usually only happen maybe once every couple weeks. We have a ball thrown in the center field that leads to five runs. We have an unfortunate injury that leads to four runs and then we literally had the game and a guy runs into the wall and the ball comes out on the other side.”

All throughout the clubhouse, it was the same message. They were fine.

Did it help that the Padres were back to playing against a bad team?

Certainly.

The Reds had a runner at third base with one out in both the first and second innings. But the worst team in the major leagues with runners in scoring position failed to score.

The Reds arguably came closer to scoring in the third, when Sal Stewart hit a ball to straightaway center field that Jackson Merrill leaped and caught at the top of the wall for the second out.

King walked the next two batters, but a groundout by Eugenio Suarez made the Reds 0 for 6 with runners in scoring position.

The Padres, who have struggled lately with runners in scoring position, showed how such a situation can be fruitful when they began the fourth inning with six consecutive hits and scored four times before making an out.

Manny Machado got the inning started with a single, his second of four hits on the night. Ty France moved Machado to third with a single and Jackson Merrill drove him in with another single. Xander Bogaerts doubled down the left-field line to score France and Merrill, and Bogaerts scored on a single by Dustin Harris.

With Reds starter Brady Singer (5-13, 4.83) likely one more baserunner away from being lifted, though, Sung-Mun Song bunted the second pitch he saw into the air for an easy out by catcher Tyler Stephenson. Fernando Tatis Jr. then grounded into a double play on the first pitch he saw.

King (9-9, 3.11) followed with his first 1-2-3 inning before a delay of 14 minutes after home plate umpire Manny Gonzalez fell ill and was helped off the field. It was later announced he had exited due to heat exhaustion. The game resumed with DJ Reyburn behind the plate and two umpires working the bases.

Singer, who had held the Padres two runs over six innings in June at Petco Park, lasted three more batters.

One-out singles by Machado and France gave the Padres runners at the corners before reliever Julian Garcia struck out Merrill and Bogaerts.

King walked a batter in the fifth but faced just three batters thanks to a double-play grounder.

With two outs and a man on first base after a single, King had a two-strike sweeper not really sweep and hit Matt McLain on the arm.

That brought manager Craig Stammen walking up the dugout steps. He was not quite off the top step when King saw him and held up his hand as if to stop him. Stammen paused just slightly, gestured back as if to say he understood and kept walking to the mound.

A brief discussion ensued, and King remained in the game.

The rest of his night lasted just one more pitch, as a line drive to right field by TJ Freidl was caught by Tatis.

Thus ended King’s 15th quality start, which is one less than half of the Padres’ 32 total and one more than his previous career high set in 2024.

A double by Tatis leading off the seventh inning led to the final Padres’ run when Ty France’s third single of the game drove him in.

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