The Padres scored three runs their first time up and two their final time up and in between let the pitching plan unfold pretty much as it was drawn up.
“That was the recipe,” manager Mike Shildt said.
Once again, things went according to plan Wednesday night in a 5-1 victory over the Angels.
The Padres got what might be the new normal from Randy Vásquez, who allowed one run in six innings. And things returned to normal with the bullpen, with three relievers working an inning apiece for the group’s first scoreless game since May 5.
“It’s the same as hitting,” shortstop Xander Bogaerts said. “As a team, you go through rough stretches where you can’t gather a run. The bullpen has been so good, so lights out the whole year, that at some point — you don’t want it to happen, but it’s a little inevitable. So they bounced back nicely today, and hopefully they’re gonna go on that nice run again.”
The bullpen, which successfully protected its first 22 leads this season, had surrendered four of the past five leads it had been handed.
That included a two-run advantage in the ninth inning Monday night that Robert Suarez coughed up by allowing a one-out single and then walking four consecutive batters in a 9-5 loss in the series opener against the Angels.
Wednesday, Suarez set down the Angels in order after Alek Jacob and Adrián Morejón worked their own scoreless innings.
It was Bogaerts who gave them a lead to protect with a three-run homer in the first inning.
The Padres, who came back to win 6-4 on Fernando Tatis Jr.’s walk-off homer in the ninth Tuesday after the bullpen lost a lead two innings earlier, never surrendered the lead Wednesday.
Their 3-0 lead in the first was built on one-out singles by Luis Arraez and Manny Machado and Bogaerts’ two-out home run to left field.
Machado’s single extended his hitting streak to 14 games, his longest in seven seasons with the Padres and the second-longest hitting streak of his career.
“It’s fun to play baseball every single day, put on that uniform and win some ball games,” Machado said when asked about the run he is on. “We have such a special, special team here. It feels great to come to a ballpark every single day and be able to go do something special every single night.”
Machado would add a single and a walk against Hendricks, and Jake Cronenworth would double off him. But that was it. The Padres did not get another run off Angels starter Kyle Hendricks.
Hendricks turned back the clock on the Padres after the first inning.
The 35-year-old right-hander, in his 12th major league season and making his 278th career start, has had success against the Padres — but not in a few years.
The same could be said of his fortunes as a whole.
Hendricks had an ERA under 4.77 once in the previous four seasons. It was 5.92 in 2024, and he entered Wednesday’s game with a 5.30 ERA over seven starts.
They were facing Hendricks in a uniform other than that of the Cubs for the first time, but Wednesday was his 16th career start against them.
He had a 2.40 ERA over the first dozen but had allowed them 12 runs in 11 innings over the past two. They scored nine runs against him in five innings in April 2024.
After not scoring against reliever Reid Detmers in the seventh inning, the Padres added on in the eighth when Brandon Lockridge lined a two-out single with the bases loaded against Jose Fermin following walks by Machado and Cronenworth and Bogaerts reaching on an error.
The first-inning bounty, it turned out, would have been enough, as Vásquez (3-3, 3.45) continued to attack the strike zone in a way he seemed incapable of just last month.
For just the second time in nine starts, he walked only one batter as he navigated his second quality start in a row and third of the season.
The run he gave up was on a long fly ball to center field by Taylor Ward in the second inning that sailed past further than Jackson Merrill anticipated and barely sailed past the center fielder’s glove after he got a late jump on the ball.
That cut the Padres’ lead to 3-1. But Vásquez would allow just three other hits — a lead-off double in the third inning, a lead-off single in the fifth and a two-out single in the sixth. He tied the season high he set in his previous start with five strikeouts.
Jacob yielded a one-out walk but ended the seventh inning with a double play grounder. Morejón worked a 1-2-3 eighth. Suarez got a pop-up and two strikeouts.
Thus ended a stretch of six consecutive games in which Padres relievers allowed at least three runs, a streak that does not include Saturday’s complete game by starting pitcher Stephen Kolek.
The bullpen allowed 31 runs over 17 ⅔ innings in that span.
“It’s a roller coaster,” Machado said of the MLB season. “They picked us up for a long time. And, you know, it’s human to go out there and give up a couple runs. It’s all right. We know what they got. We know that they’re one of the best bullpens in the game.”
Originally Published: May 14, 2025 at 9:04 PM PDT