SAN DIEGO – The San Diego Padres eliminate the Arizona Diamondbacks from playoff contention following their 7-4 victory on Friday Petco Park.
While most people will remember what catapulted them ahead of their NL West foes, let’s talk about the scenario leading to those heroic events.
Entering the fourth inning down by a pair of runs against, the Padres needed to find a spark, especially only chasing the Cubs by two games for home-field advantage during the Wild Card round.
Diamondbacks’ RHP Zac Gallen, who is 4-0 with an ERA of 1.42 and 37 strikeouts in his last five games against the Padres, started the inning off with a line out against Jackson Merrill. With one-out in his pocket, it looked like it was going to be another dominant inning for Gallen.
However, Xander Bogaerts, Gavin Sheets and Ryan O’Hearn reached base with consecutive singles to lower the deficit by a run after the RBI to right field by O’Hearn. Later, Freddy Fermin would draw a walk to load the bases with two-outs, setting up Fernando Tatis Jr., who had missed the last three games with an illness.
Working a full-count, nine pitch at-bat, Tatis Jr. connected on a 95 MPH fastball up and tight in the zone for his fourth career grand slam to give the Padres a 5-2 lead. The momentum in this game flipped immediately following his 24th homer on the year.
Welcome back Tati, right?” Padres manager Mike Shildt said. “He’s always had power… there was a spell where he didn’t do it, but yeah, I think we feel good about (it). He’s a dangerous guy regardless of power included.”
Not only did it help the team get some cushion against a hungry Diamondbacks team, who was fighting for the final Wild Card spot, it gave RHP Yu Darvish some breathing room on the mound. He really needed it after giving up a solo shot in the first and third inning to Ketel Marte and Jake McCarthy, and avoided some mishaps with runners on base to keep the game within reach.
“Playing baseball is definitely different and looking forward to that adrenaline, Tatis Jr. said. “Definitely way better today and looking forward to be even better in the next couple of days.”
Darvish would get taken out at the start of the sixth inning by RHP Bradgley Rodriguez. Making his 15th and final start of the 2025 regular season, Darvish finished the game with two earned runs allowed on six hits, walked a pair and struck out four on 79 pitches.
“Thought he was good,” Shildt said. “I thought he was able to navigate a little bit of traffic, make pitches. Thought he settled in, got a little rhytem to the middle part of his outing, and was able to get a clean fifth to grab the win.”
“I don’t think I was at my best… We try to figure it out, you know, try not to make those mistake,” Darvish said about his struggles giving up the home run ball. “It is the cases where I am throwing that pitch into the hitters slug zone. So, obviously we want to avoid that. Try to avoid those mistakes.”
The Padres would load the bases for the second time during the fifth inning and tacked on another run following a lead-off walk by Manny Machado, a single by Bogaerts, a fielders choice by Gavin Sheets, followed by a bases loaded walk by Jake Cronenworth.
The seventh and final run for San Diego happened in the eighth inning, starting with back-to-back two-out singles by Arraez and Machado, followed by an RBI single by Merrill.
Before reliever Mason Miller closed door on Jorge Barrosa, Arizona made things interesting in the eighth inning by forcing two bases-loaded RBI walks to relievers Kyle Hart and David Morgan to bring down the lead to 6-4.
The Friars finished the game out hitting the Diamondbacks (12-8), but also finished 3-for-11 with RISP and left 10 runners on base. Defensively, they held the Diamondbacks 0-for-6 with RISP and made numerous defensive plays to prevent some extra runs, including a long throw out in center field by Merrill to get a streaking Geraldo Perdomo out at third base back in the third inning.
“Really, really, really nice play,” Shildt said. “Jackson making sure he keeps the ball down, gets the out at third base today. We got a couple out on the bases today. Freddy (Fermin) nice throw. So a lot of good things happen defensively.”
A couple of other notes, Luis Arraez’s single back in the first inning, extended his hitting streak to 14 games, which is currently the longest in the majors. He finished 4-for-5 tonight with three knocks and a double.
Parallel to Arraez, Cronenworth extended his on-base streak to 14 games, which coming into the night was tied for third longest in the NL with Arraez.
With two games remaining on the schedule and the NL West no longer a thought, the only thing the Padres can focus on is winning out and hoping the Cubs drop their next pair of games against the Cardinals. Just a reminder, the Padres have the tie-breaker over the Cubs because they have the better division record.
“We feel great,” Arraez said. “My personal feel, I feel great to go there in Chicago and then do the job, man. Enjoy the game, we made the playoff for something.”
Saturday’s 5:40 p.m. first pitch will feature RHP Michael King (5-3, 3.57 ERA) on the mound for the Padres. And on the opposing bump, the Diamondbacks will start LHP Eduardo Rodriguez (9-8, 4.91 ERA).