The Padres are slugging now.<\/p>\n
And they did not wait for dramatic home runs at the end on Saturday night.<\/p>\n
The drama was on the other side of the ball.<\/p>\n
Jason Adam came out of the bullpen to get the final out with the bases loaded as the Padres secured a 9-5 victory over the Colorado Rockies at Petco Park.<\/p>\n
Two early home runs brought the Padres back from a big early deficit.<\/p>\n
Manny Machado\u2019s two-run homer in the third inning and Ram\u00f3n Laureano\u2019s three-run homer in the fourth did most of the work as the Padres turned a 4-0 deficit into a 6-4 lead before they cruised to their fourth straight victory and seventh in eight games.<\/p>\n
\u201cThis is a long game,\u201d Machado said. \u201cSo you gotta just kind of stick to the plan. Sometimes, you know, they fall, sometimes they don\u2019t. Just gotta be consistent with having a good plan. And we\u2019ve been doing that as a ballclub.\u201d<\/p>\n
Saturday was the fifth consecutive game in which the Padres had at least one home run; they have five over the past two nights.<\/p>\n
They began the season with five home runs in their first 10 games and went six games without one in that opening span.<\/p>\n
They ranked 26th among MLB\u2019s 30 teams in slugging percentage to that point. They have moved up 13 spots since.<\/p>\n
Saturday\u2019s explosives followed two straight nights that ended with walk-off home runs \u2014 a 12th-inning grand slam by Xander Bogaerts for a 7-3 victory on Thursday and Gavin Sheets\u2019 three-run homer in the ninth inning for a 5-2 victory on Friday.<\/p>\n
The Padres never trailed in either of those games.<\/p>\n
\u201cThere\u2019s a capability of every single guy in the lineup going deep at any point in the game and that\u2019s exciting,\u201d Sheets said. \u201cThat\u2019s an extremely dangerous lineup as you can see. Bogey the first night, me last night, we got a couple guys going tonight and \u2026 (Luis Campusano) last night too. We can get you at any time, at any point in the lineup. I think we\u2019re feeding off that, we\u2019re seeing the slug and it\u2019s a little contagious. \u2026<\/p>\n
\u201cI think we\u2019re just getting in there ready to do damage.\u201d<\/p>\n
They got down quick Saturday, as La Costa Canyon High School graduate Mickey Moniak hit a two-run homer in the first inning and followed Edouard Julien\u2019s solo homer in the third inning with his own solo homer in the third.<\/p>\n
Saturday was the second time in Germ\u00e1n M\u00e1rquez\u2019s three starts that the Padres trailed 4-0.<\/p>\n
Before working five scoreless innings on Monday in Pittsburgh, M\u00e1rquez allowed two home runs and yielded four runs in all over four innings in his Padres debut on March 31.<\/p>\n
Saturday, he was facing the team for which he made his first 200 starts. And the Rockies gave Petco Park a bit of a Coors Field feel, just without all the singles and doubles.<\/p>\n
Because when he was not surrendering home runs, M\u00e1rquez was actually fairly efficiently making outs.<\/p>\n
He was at 71 pitches after four innings; 51 of those came in the two innings in which he surrendered two runs.<\/p>\n
M\u00e1rquez struck out five straight and then retired one more batter after Moniak\u2019s first home run. Then Julien swatted a home run the other way to left field, M\u00e1rquez got another out and Moniak drove his second home run over the wall in right-center field.<\/p>\n
That gave Moniak his second multi-homer game this season and his second at Petco Park in two seasons.<\/p>\n
Down just a run after a walk by Laureano, a single by Tatis, an RBI groundout by Jackson Merrill and Machado\u2019s blast against Rockies starter Ryan Feltner, M\u00e1rquez got through his second 10-pitch inning in the fourth.<\/p>\n
Miguel Andujar\u2019s double and a walk by Freddy Fermin with one out preceded Laureano\u2019s two-out drive to the left field seats that gave the Padres the lead.<\/p>\n
Fermin helped M\u00e1rquez through a two-walk fifth inning, which got him in position for his second straight win, by throwing out Jake McCarthy trying to steal second base.<\/p>\n
\u201cThat\u2019s my mindset: Don\u2019t give up,\u201d Marquez said of rebounding to stay in the game long enough to get a win. \u201cKeep making pitches. Sometimes those pitches are going to be outs. So don\u2019t give up.\u201d<\/p>\n
Wandy Peralta retired the Rockies in order in the sixth. Ron Marinaccio took over with one out and two runners on in the seventh and got an inning-ending double play. He allowed a run in the eighth before Bradgley Rodriguez loaded the bases on a double and two walks in the ninth and needed Adam\u2019s assistance.<\/p>\n
Adam retired Ezequiel Tovar on a pop-up for the quick save.<\/p>\n
The Padres had added on in the sixth, scoring a run on an error and three consecutive walks by Zach Agnos and a double by Merrill against Brennan Bernadino.<\/p>\n
They almost had another home run, too.<\/p>\n
The Padres responded in the bottom of the first inning with a double, a walk and a drive by Nick Castellanos to left field that was caught above the eight-foot wall by Jordan Beck.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"The Padres are slugging now. And they did not wait for dramatic home runs at the end on…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":674017,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[2405],"tags":[5,167,52,4316,853,4,168,18,185,3546],"class_list":{"0":"post-674016","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-colorado-rockies","8":"tag-baseball","9":"tag-colorado","10":"tag-colorado-rockies","11":"tag-coloradorockies","12":"tag-latest-headlines","13":"tag-mlb","14":"tag-rockies","15":"tag-san-diego-padres","16":"tag-sports","17":"tag-top-stories-sdut"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/channels.im\/@mlb\/116391346439019931","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/674016","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=674016"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/674016\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/674017"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=674016"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=674016"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=674016"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}