Mariners upend Padres, heat up at the plate to extend winning streak to 4 games
What’s one way to boost the confidence of the youngest team in the majors? How about shutting down the hottest team in baseball?
The Mariners did that Tuesday evening in San Diego, upending the Padres, 8-3, at Petco Park in the first game of a three-game Vedder Cup.
With the win Seattle (12-19) pushed its current winning streak to four games, and ended a string of seven consecutive San Diego victories.
“I thought our guys competed very well tonight, so nice way to start the road trip,” Mariners manager Scott Servais said on a postgame video call. “We continue to play good ball, and it’s an interesting team to watch grow. It really is. I’m enjoying it.”
Much like they did in their three-game sweep of the Rangers at home over the weekend, the Mariners fed off contributions up and down the lineup. Everyone reached base at least once. Eight of their nine batters had at least one hit.
Kyle Lewis extended his hitting streak to nine games, Austin Nola and Sam Haggerty extended theirs to six and J.P. Crawford, who hadn’t been seeing results at the plate as of late, pushed his to three.
The Mariners plugged away on offense all game long, putting up a pair of runs in four separate innings. Crawford started it all by drawing a walk to lead off the game. Lewis gave Seattle runners at the corners with one out with a base hit, and a Kyle Seager sac fly gave the Mariners the game’s only lead.
Nola then singled for his first of three hits — he has two three-hit games in his past three appearances — and Evan White drove in a run on his first of three hits.
“You always want to get going early,” Crawford said. “You get going in the first inning, that sets the tone, sets the tempo. It sets our attitude that day, so we’ve got to keep pushing the gas.”
Crawford pushed the early lead to four runs in the second when he drilled a fastball from Chris Paddack for a two-run homer to straightaway center.
The Padres cut the lead to one run in the third, but the Mariners built back on it in three innings later, pushing Paddack out of the game with no outs in the sixth, and hanging six runs on him, matching his season-high for runs allowed in a start.
Nola opened the inning with a solo shot, and White doubled before Paddack was lifted. Crawford drove in his third run of the game on a double four batters later to give the Mariners a 6-3 cushion.
Seattle scored two more against the Padres bullpen in the seventh on four singles from Seager, Nola, White and Tim Lopes. White and Nola both pick up RBI on their base hits.
“When you’re dealing with young guys that just want to get better every day, it’s fun to coach,” Servais said. “It’s a fun group to be around. And nice to see the results starting to come. ... A lot of real positives tonight all the way around.”
Marco Gonzales ran into some traffic the first two innings, but held the Padres’ daunting lineup down the first time through. They finally got to Seattle’s ace in the third.
Manny Machado started a two-out rally with a double as San Diego strung together four consecutive extra-base hits. Eric Hosmer pulled a changeup to right, and kept a two-run homer just fair. Wil Myers was then ruled safe on a double after a challenge, following a sequence when Mariners right fielder Jake Fraley appeared to throw him out advancing. Ty France promptly swapped places with Myers with a run-scoring double to center that cut Seattle’s lead to 4-3.
“It was a grind,” Gonzales said. “They have a good lineup, they’re balanced. I think what you saw was maybe they were aggressive in different counts then we were anticipating, so we had to pivot a little bit, especially after the third inning. We saw them leaning one way, so we kind of pivoted our game plan.
“Those are just things that you have to do. You have to make adjustments, so I felt like we did a good job. Leaning on Austin behind the plate and of course he did a great job. He’s been rock solid all season long.”
Gonzales, though not as sharp as usual, worked through two more innings without further damage, leaving with the lead after five with his pitch count at 98.
“I think it’s just going back to my strengths, looking it back in and executing pitches,” he said of how he regrouped after the third. “Sometimes the game has this way of snowballing on us a little bit and we can kind of get caught up in the momentum, so to remove myself and take a step back, and then go back into executing, I think in the fourth inning we did a good job, and then in the fifth inning to put up another zero was a good feeling, too.”
He allowed the three runs on a season-high nine hits with five strikeouts. He didn’t allow a walk for the third time in six starts, and hasn’t allowed more than one in any outing this season.
“I thought one of the more professional outings that Marco has given us all year,” Servais said. “I say that in the fact that it wasn’t easy for him. I think last time out was probably as good as he’s been all year at Dodger Stadium, and tonight it was a little bit of a struggle. Not quite the same command or stuff.
“They kind of had him on the ropes there in the third inning, but he was able to kind of battle through it and give us five innings tonight which was huge, and that’s what you have to do on the nights you don’t have your ‘A’ game is you keep your team in the game, give us a chance and then our offense took it from there.”
It was enough to earn Gonzales his third win.
The bullpen, much more efficient the past two weeks or so, coolly worked through the final four innings, and combined to keep Fernando Tatis Jr., one of the hottest hitters in baseball, off the bases for the first time in 11 games. Tatis finished 0-for-5.
Seattle’s bullpen, meanwhile, has a top-five ERA in the majors in the past week, having allowed just four runs in its past 21 innings across seven games.
Veteran reliever Yoshihisa Hirano threw a scoreless sixth, Dan Altavilla allowed a pair of base runners in the seventh, but no damage, and benefited from an impressive grab by Crawford on a line drive from Hosmer that would have given San Diego at least runners at the corners with one out.
Rookies Aaron Fletcher and Joey Gerber completed scoreless innings in the eighth and ninth to close out the win.
This story was originally published August 25, 2020 at 9:20 PM.
