Padres Pound D-backs Into Submission 11-5

Fernando Tatis Jr. hit three homeruns and went 4 for 5, driving in 4 runs leading the Padres to an 11-5 victory over the Diamondbacks tonight.

Corbin Martin failed to get out of the first inning. He gave up back to back homers to Tommy Pham and Tatis to start the game. That was followed by : Walk-Single-HBP- Sac Fly RBI- Walk. That was all Torey Lovullo could stomach, as he trudged out to take the ball away from Martin and give it to Riley Smith. Smith gave up a sac fly RBI of his own before getting the 9th batter of the inning, Padres pitcher Chris Paddack, to line out to right. 4-0 Padres.

The D-backs fought back in the second. With two on and two out Josh Rojas singled home two runs, and Josh VanMeter followed with a double down the right field line to score Rojas, making it 4-3.

The Padres got to Smith in the 2nd inning however, getting back to back homers for the second time in the game, this time from Tatis and Jake Cronenworth.

The D-backs answered again. Three straight one out singles by Pavin Smith, Christian Walker and Daulton Varsho loaded the bases and Nick Ahmed delivered a double to plate two runs and bring the D-backs back to within one, with the score 6-5 San Diego. That chased Paddack, but it turned out that was all the scoring left for Arizona on the night as a parade of Padre relievers put up goose eggs the rest of the way.

With one out in the bottom of the 4th Riley Smith plunked Tommy Pham in the shoulder with an 0-2 pitch and Fernando Tatis Jr. on deck. For some reason Pham was incensed and nearly charged the mound, almost creating an incident. Proving the point of how silly it was, Tatis stepped up and launched his 3^rd homerun of the game over the centerfield wall, extending the Padres lead back to three, 8-5 Padres. Bob pointed out that during the D-backs record setting road losing streak they’ve been outhomered 43-13

The D-backs squandered a scoring opportunity in the 5th. They got walks from Varsho and Ahmed, and with two outs Josh Rojas hit a grounder to first. Hosmer flipped to the pitcher Miguel Diaz who dropped the ball. Varsho had to hold at 3^rd and Ahmed didn’t pick it up, and ran almost all the way to third. He tried to get back to 2^nd but was thrown out before he could get there to end the inning. It was yet another mental miscue by Nick, and one has to wonder. He’s a veteran, he plays hard, he’s a team leader. But he’s been involved in his share of mental mishaps this year too.

They had chances to score runs in the 6th and 8th too, with multiple baserunners in both innings, but couldn’t push any more across. They ended the night 3 for 13 with runners in scoring position. Certainly there were some squandered opportunities on offense, but they would have needed to score at least 12 runs to win this game.

The Padres tacked on two more runs in the 7th and one in the 8th off of Matt Peacock working in relief after coming off the bereavement list. This extended the Padres lead to 11-5 and that would be the final score as the D-backs couldn’t do more than a Christian Walker single in the final frame.

Stop me if you’ve heard this before, but it was the D-backs 24th straight road loss. The combined 11 runs given up by Martin, Smith, and Peacock, and the sheer dynamic power of Tatis Jr could not be overcome.

Fangraphs Box

WPA Leaders: Nick Ahmed. +.247 (TOOTBLAN NOT INCLUDED), Josh Rojas +.120

WPA Losers: Corbin Martin, -.321, Riley Smith -.255

Roll Call

COTG goes to kilnborn, for his observation after Martin gave up 2 runs on 5 pitches

Alas, that wouldn’t last either, as Martin walked two and hit a batter before getting pulled.

Back at it again tomorrow night, same 7:10 Start Time.