Padres open series in Sacramento with one-run win over A's

Kevin Acee, The San Diego Union-Tribune on Apr 8, 2025

Published in Baseball

By clicking submit, I authorize Arcamax and its affiliates to: (1) use, sell, and share my information for marketing purposes, including cross-context behavioral advertising, as described in our Privacy Policy , (2) add to information that I provide with other information like interests inferred from web page views, or data lawfully obtained from data brokers, such as past purchase or location data, or publicly available data, (3) contact me or enable others to contact me by email or other means with offers for different types of goods and services, and (4) retain my information while I am engaging with marketing messages that I receive and for a reasonable amount of time thereafter. I understand I can opt out at any time through an email that I receive, or by clicking here

WEST SACRAMENTO — The distinctly strong scent of cow pasture rode in on the afternoon breeze.

The wind had vanished by game time, and the usual ballpark smells wafted throughout Sutter Health Park, hard on the shore of the Sacramento River with the Tower Bridge, the 16-story Holiday Inn and the very few taller buildings that make up the skyline of California’s capital city.

“It’s a baseball stadium,” Padres manager Mike Shildt said Monday afternoon. “We’re gonna go play baseball.”

That it is, and that they did.

The Padres did not play all that well at times, though there was the big-league defensive play Manny Machado made and Fernando Tatis Jr.’s home run that sailed out of the minor-league ballpark and catcher Elías Díaz did throw out a runner at second base for a crucial out in the eighth inning.

But they did enough to beat the Athletics 5-4 in a Major League Baseball game in a small ballpark with hardly a second deck, a grassy knoll dotted with fans on folding chairs and blankets wrapped around half the outfield and the visiting clubhouse beyond the outfield wall.

It was nothing more than a little odd. Wins and losses count the same in the standings, as it did when the A’s played in Oakland all those years and as it will when they make their planned move to Las Vegas in 2027 or ‘28 or whenever.

To that end, the Padres improved to 9-2, matching the best 11-game start in franchise history achieved twice before — in 1984 and 1998, the Padres’ only two seasons to end with a trip to the World Series.

It was the work of the back end of their bullpen that finished off a game that was in doubt throughout despite them taking a 3-0 lead in the top half of the first inning for a second straight day.

Adrián Morejón, Jeremiah Estrada, Jason Adam and Robert Suarez have only pitched in wins this season.

Successive doubles by Luis Arraez and Machado and a two-run homer by Jake Cronenworth is what gave the Padres their three runs at the start.

This time, even though their starting pitcher took a circuitous route to his three outs, the Padres held that lead after the entire inning had been played.

Michael King walked two batters in the first inning, but he got his three outs in two pitches, on a double play following the first walk and a fly ball to center field following the second walk.

After King created some extra work for himself in the first inning, a Cronenworth error created some extra work for him in the second. King left a runner at second that inning, and was given a 4-0 lead to protect in the third when Arraez singled and scored from first on another Machado double.

The A’s got their first run on Tyler Soderstrom’s homer lined over the right field wall in the third inning.

In the fourth, two infield singles, a line drive single and a double got them two more runs.

King was at 81 pitches after four innings, a precarious situation for the Padres, who got eight total innings from their starters in three games in Chicago before coming here.

But he got through the fifth on five pitches, thanks in part to Machado backhanding a 105 mph grounder on the grass at third, rising from one knee, spinning 180 degrees and throwing to first for the third out.

Only a two-out single that caromed off Machado’s glove kept King from getting through a full six innings.

With two out in the fifth, Shildt went to Morejón to face Lawrence Butler. Morejón struck out the left-handed-hitting Butler on three pitches.

Athletics ace Luis Severino pretty much cruised after Machado’s double with one out in the third. He retired 13 of the next 15 batters before Tatis walked to the plate with two outs in the seventh.

That’s when Severino hung a slider that Tatis smacked 406 feet and off the top of a tall building that helps form the outer edge of the park.

The blast gave the Padres a 5-3 lead.

In the bottom of the seventh, with Estrada in for the Padres, Soderstrom’s second home run of the game and sixth of the season got the A’s back to within a run.

Adam yielded a one-out single to Jacob Wilson before Díaz nabbed pinch-runner Max Schuemann trying to steal second and Adam struck out Seth Brown.

Suarez worked a 1-2-3 ninth inning for his fifth save of the season.

________