The San Diego Padres entered the top of the eighth inning with a 3-1 lead over the St. Louis Cardinals at Petco Park. Padres reliever Adrian Morejon was on the mound and manager Craig Stammen was following the blueprint to a San Diego win. Randy Vasquez started the game and pitched five innings of one-run ball scattering six hits without allowing a walk and striking out six. Jeremiah Estrada worked a scoreless sixth and Jason Adam followed with a scoreless seventh. Morejon was supposed to pitch a scoreless eighth before handing the ball to Mason Miller to close out the win. It did not happen that way.
Instead, Morejon hit JJ Weatherholt to put a runner on with one out. He then allowed a double to Ivan Herrera, which scored Weatherholt and cut the Padres lead to one run. Morejon faced lefty Alec Burleson and got him to ground out for the second out of the inning, but then Stammen called on Miller for a four-out save. The right-hander did his job in the top of the eighth and got one of the Cardinals’ hottest hitters in Jordan Walker to ground out to end the inning, stranding the tying run at second base.
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Manny Machado launched a one-out solo home run to left-center field in the bottom of the eighth inning to push the lead to 4-2, but San Diego did not score any additional insurance runs. Miller returned to the mound in the top of the ninth inning and looked less than dominant… kind of. Miller allowed a leadoff walk, recorded a strikeout and then allowed the second walk of the inning to put runners at first and second base. Miller then recorded his second strikeout of the inning and followed that with his third strikeout, but Freddy Fermin was unable to keep the ball in front of him and Yohel Pozo was able to reach first base safely to load the bases. Miller then faced Weatherholt and froze him with a fastball down the middle for the fourth strikeout of the inning, earning the save and the win.
Ty France opened the scoring for San Diego with a one-out solo home run in the bottom of the fifth inning to tie the game at 1-1. Fernando Tatis Jr. came up with two out and runners at second and third and dumped a shallow fly ball in right field, which allowed two runs to score to put the Padres ahead, 3-1.
The Padres will play for the split when they host the Cardinals in the fourth game of the series at 1:10 p.m.
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Yuki Matsui was being stretched out during his minor league rehab assignment and he wants to continue to work toward helping the Padres cover multiple innings out of the ’pen.
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Tony Gwynn would have turned 66 on Saturday, but he died far too young. The man they called Mr. Padre was a legend in San Diego and beyond. Kirk Kenney of the San Diego Union-Tribune shared his thoughts on Gwynn.
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