PHOENIX – The San Diego Padres entered Thursday’s four-game series finale trailing the Arizona Diamondbacks desperately needing a win.\u00a0<\/p>\n
It goes without saying that with 46 games left on the schedule, every game and every win matters, especially when those slim margins could be decided within your division and a season series win could ultimately become the difference to playing baseball in October.\u00a0<\/p>\n
The Padres succeeded this time around at Chase Field, pulling off a 5-1 victory, trailing the Diamondbacks by only one game for the last NL Wild Card spot.\u00a0<\/p>\n
These two ball clubs have already met three times this season, and the season series now sits deadlocked at 5-5. Their final meeting is scheduled for September 25-27 during the last weekend of the regular season.\u00a0<\/p>\n
San Diego’s offense started their attack on left-hander Kohl Drake very early on with a double by Fernando Tatis Jr. and a successful sac-bunt attempt by Luis Rengifo. Manny Machado would ground into a 6-4-3 double play which allowed Tatis Jr. to score to put the game’s first run on the board.\u00a0<\/p>\n
Drake would load the bases with no outs in the third after plunking Jake Cronenworth on the tricep, walking Tatis Jr and giving up a second bunt single to Rengifo. Leading up, Machado would ground out again for his second RBI, and a batter later, Ty France made it 3-0 following a sac-fly to right field.\u00a0<\/p>\n
After retiring the first pair of batter during the third, Walker Buehler had to get himself out of a jam during the bottom half of the third. Arizona rallied with a ground ball double by Corbin Carroll, an RBI single by Gabriel Moreno to make it 3-1 and singles by Ketel Marte and Lars Nootbaar.\u00a0<\/p>\n
Despite the one run surrendered, Buehler managed to avoid the worst by forcing Nolan Arenado to fly out to center field to end the frame.\u00a0<\/p>\n
San Diego had two runners in scoring position in the following inning after a Xander Bogaerts single and a double by Cronenworth. The Diamondbacks turned Jonathan Lo\u00e1isiga in the bullpen to record the final out against Tatis Jr.\u00a0<\/p>\n
An inning and half later, Jackson Merrill and Bogaerts reached on base with a single and a walk against reliever Philip Abner. Freddy Fermin batted in the lead runner on a sharp line drive single to center to extend the score to 4-1.\u00a0<\/p>\n
Machado scored the Padres their fifth run of the game in the seventh after drawing a walk with one out. He advanced to second on a wild pitch, transitioned to third after France’s fly out and was brought across after a ground ball single by Merrill.\u00a0<\/p>\n
Buehler finished his outing after the fourth inning and tossed a total of 76 pitches (47 counted as strikes). He finished by allowing six hits, one earned run, a walk and three strikeouts.\u00a0<\/p>\n
The 32-year-old was replaced by right-hander Bradgley Rodriguez (3-2, 2.29 ERA), who threw two shutout innings and was credited with the win. Right-hander Jeremiah Estrada took the mound in the seventh and posted a scoreless frame.\u00a0<\/p>\n
Adrian Morejon and Mason Miller both made their first appearance’s in the series. The dominant pair allowed a hit each and did not surrender a run.\u00a0<\/p>\n
The significant impact from the bullpen proved to be the difference in this game, combing for five scoreless innings, two hits, no walks and seven strikeouts. \u00a0<\/p>\n
The Padres had seven batters record at least a hit. Rengifo (3-for-5), Bogaerts (2-for-3), France (2-for-4) and Merrill (2-for-5) all had multi-hit efforts.\u00a0<\/p>\n
Merrill’s second half resurgence continued after he finished the series 6-for-17 (.353 AVG), 3 RBIs and 4 runs.\u00a0<\/p>\n
With the Padres win tonight, they’re only a game back from the Diamondbacks for the final NL Wild Card. They also trail the Phillies by two games for the second spot. \u00a0<\/p>\n
The Padres head into the weekend beginning a three game series against the Houston Astros at Petco Park. On the hill, left-hander Robbie Ray (10-6, 3.08 ERA) will make his Padres debut, and right-hander Ronel Blanco (0-1, 7.36 ERA) will make his fourth start of the season.\u00a0<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"PHOENIX – The San Diego Padres entered Thursday’s four-game series finale trailing the Arizona Diamondbacks desperately needing a…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":772145,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[2407],"tags":[12051,22,5,17922,1538,920,5993,871,872,3922,729,37328,1179,2180,1527,1101,4,169,1028,43,137,18,4339,4338,7944,3197,115,1821],"class_list":["post-772144","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-san-diego-padres","tag-adrian-morejon","tag-arizona-diamondbacks","tag-baseball","tag-bradgley-rodriguez","tag-corbin-carroll","tag-fernando-tatis-jr","tag-gabriel-moreno","tag-jackson-merrill","tag-jake-cronenworth","tag-jeremiah-estrada","tag-ketel-marte","tag-kohl-drake","tag-lars-nootbaar","tag-luis-rengifo","tag-manny-machado","tag-mason-miller","tag-mlb","tag-news","tag-nolan-arenado","tag-padres","tag-san-diego","tag-san-diego-padres","tag-sandiego","tag-sandiegopadres","tag-tst-san-diego","tag-ty-france","tag-walker-buehler","tag-xander-bogaerts"],"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/channels.im\/@mlb\/117052621697912227","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/772144","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=772144"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/772144\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/772145"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=772144"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=772144"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=772144"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}