The Padres completed their third late-inning comeback victory of the season by topping the Dodgers 8-7 on Friday night.
Rookie Jackson Merrill poked a single through the left side with two outs and two strikes in the top of the 11th inning to score José Azocar from second base with the winning run.
Robert Suarez then set down the Dodgers in order to earn the win. Suarez got the final four outs after taking over for Enyel De Los Santos with two down in the 10th.
Azocar began the top of the 11th on second base and was standing there after Alex Vesia retired the first two batters. Merrill swung through a fastball and fouled two off before putting the fourth one he saw into left-center field.
“We keep saying it,” Merrill said in an onfield interview on 97.3-FM after the game. “We keep saying we have the heart and we’ve got the fight, we’ve got everything we need to come back and win games. We’ve done it multiple times this year. It’s a good feeling when you can go down again and still come back and provide.”
The Padres lost an early lead, then came back from a 7-3 deficit with a run in the sixth and three in the third, the final two of those on Fernando Tatis Jr.’s home run.
“We have done this since the second game of the season, and we have been getting the same results,” Tatis said. “I’ve been saying we’re never out of the game, and we keep pushing that that line for that guy behind us.”
This was the third time in 16 games the Padres (8-8) have won a game in which they trailed coming to bat in the seventh inning. They did that just six times all last season.
This was the first extra-inning game of the season for a team that went 2-12 in such games last year. And after going 9-23 in one-run games in 2023, one of the worst records of all time, the Padres are 3-2 this season in games decided by the slimmest margin.
“Winner’s find solutions,” manager Mike Shildt said. “It’s a mindset. Guys competing in any and every situation. And they are playing the game the right way, regardless of whether they are up (or) down, they are playing it to compete and win, so it’s a great mindset. I’m proud of the guys to have, and it’s good to have at the beginning of the season. It’s only going to get getter.”
A two-run homer by Manny Machado put the Padres up 2-0, and a solo homer by Ha-Seong Kim leading off the second inning made it 3-1.
Those were two of the five homers the teams combined for in the first two innings and the seven homers they had hit when Jake Cronenworth homered in the sixth.
All but one of the game’s first 14 runs came via a homer.
That run came in the seventh Merrill walked, went to third on Tyler Wade’s single and scored on a groundout by Xander Bogaerts. Tatis followed with his fifth homer of the season, a two-run rocket to left-center field on a belt-high curve ball on the inner third of the plate from Ryan Brasier.
“He just left me a good pitch out there, and fortunately I put a good swing on it,” Tatis said.
Ha-Seong Kim, left, celebrates as he scores after hitting a solo home run.
(Mark J. Terrill / Associated Press)
Home runs were not the full story for the Padres, who began the homer barrage and helped the Dodgers continue it.
The Dodgers had led for the bulk of the game because an error by Bogaerts on a grounder that should have ended the second inning instead extended it long enough for Mookie Betts to hit a three a three-run homer.
After Bogaerts booted a backhand attempt with two outs and a runner on first, Betts hit the next pitch to the seats beyond left field to put the Dodgers up 5-3.
That was after Shohei Ohtani’s solo homer in the first and a home run by Max Muncy leading off the second and before Teoscar Hernandez’s two-run blast in the third, which made it 7-3.
Nine of the Padres’ 11 errors this season have led to at least one run.
A recent string of gaffes has been particularly costly.
Two Kim errors helped the Giants to all three of their runs in a 3-2 victory this past Sunday. On Wednesday against the Cubs, the Padres overcame a Kim error that kept an inning going for the next batter to hit a two-run homer.
Manny Machado, second from right hits a two-run home run.
(Mark J. Terrill / Associated Press)
Michael King, coming off seven shutout innings Sunday in San Francisco, made it through five innings on Friday. The four homers were most he had ever yielded in a game.
The Padres scored their first three runs against Dodgers starter Yoshinobu Yamamoto, who went five innings. Cronenworth’s homer came off Daniel Hudson.
They had driven Yamamoto from his first big-league start, on March 21 in Seoul, South Korea, scoring five runs on four hits in the first inning.
In his two starts since last facing the Padres, Yamamoto had not allowed a run in 10 innings.
That streak was blown up quickly when Tatis singled and Machado homered in the first.
After Ohtani’s homer in the bottom of the first, Kim lined a fastball down the left field line to make it 3-1.
King held the Dodgers scoreless his final two innings. Stephen Kolek worked a scoreless sixth, Yuki Matsui a scoreless seventh and Wandy Peralta got through the eighth and recorded the first out in the ninth before left-hander Tom Cosgrove came in to get Shoehei Ohtani on a lineout to center field and strike out Freddie Freeman.
“Lot to unpack in this one,” Shildt said. “Loved the early lead, the Manny two-run homer, Kimmy. They answered back. We answered back. They answered back. And then they get the lead 7-3. Lot of love in this game for a lot of people. Let’s also make sure we give some to Michael King. Gives up seven through three and found a way to gut up and go get a clean fourth and fifth, which set our bullpen up to be able to do what we were able to do. Because if we had to go to the bullpen earlier, we’re not able to do that. So I applaud that, and then you’re down 7-3 and nobody’s giving in.
“There wasn’t any vibe to us like how we’re going to do it? Just a matter of how. Guys took good at-bats. Sneaky play in there was Wade getting started on Bogey’s ball he hit down the line. Could have possibly ended the inning with a double play ball. Makes it 7-5. Keeps the inning alive. Tati, a flair for the dramatic. Croney another big home run when we’re down. Says a lot to get us sparked back up and then Tatis makes the big swing.”
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