It was a tough one to swallow for the Padres as they fell short on Sunday 7-6 in the series finale against the Miami Marlins at LoanDepot Park.
For the third time in this series, San Diego (66-53) were behind and needed to string together some runs to come back from an early deficit. During the ninth inning down by one run, the Padres thought they managed to continue their magic; at least at first glance.
During Ha-Seong Kim’s at-bat in the ninth inning, he connected with what was believed as a game tying home run, but after further review the call was overturned and was ruled as a ground-rule double because the ball hit the top of the fence and the ball came back to outfielder Kyle Stowers’ glove and went over the fence. Following the ruling on the previous play, Luis Campusano struckout to end the afternoon for the Padres.
Padres manager Mike Shildt said that he was given no explanation on the overturned ground-rule double, but admitted that the right call was made.
Padres starter Dylan Cease (11-9, 3.41 ERA), making his 25th start after pitching only one inning in his last game, had the Padres down early on by allowing the Marlins to score five runs in the first two innings.
“You know, we’re in August… I give him credit for being able to gut through five innings and keep it right there where we had a chance clearly at the end to take the lead,” said Shildt when asked if he thought Cease had some rust from his previous start.
Cease was only charged for two of the five runs that scored. During the second inning the Padres coughed up two errors, one on a fielding error by Kim and the other was a missed catch by first baseman Luis Arraez.
The pitching started to clean up for Cease after the second inning by allowing no additional runs, one hit and two walks. He finished Sunday’s outing by tossing five innings with two earned runs, six hits and five strikeouts.
Being down by five runs, the Padres started to chip away at the Marlins lead. The Padres brought the Marlins lead down to one run on two separate occasions in the seventh and eighth inning.
In the seventh inning David Peralta hit an RBI double to score Jackson Merrill from first. Pinch-hitting for Jake Cronenworth, Donovan Solano crushed a two-run no doubt homer bringing in Arraez.
“What an effort from the group… you’re down five nothing in any game, it’s a challenge,” Shildt said. “They’re gonna compete and they’re gonna give us what they’ve got and that’s plenty.”
Marlins (44-75) starting pitcher Max Meyer (3-2, 5.20) finished pitching 6 1/3 innings with four runs on seven hits with four strikeouts. As well, Meyer retired the first nine Padre batters. He gave up the first Padres run in the fifth inning from a Peralta RBI groundout.
The Padres will return back to Petco Park on Monday for the start of a three game series against the Pittsburgh Pirates, who were swept earlier this week by the Padres at PNC Park.
San Diego native and Padres ace Joe Musgrove (3-4, 5.66 ERA) will make his long awaited return to the mound. Meanwhile, Marco Gonzalez (1-1, 4.54 ERA) is named as the expected starting pitcher for the Bucs.
The last time Musgrove pitched for the Friars was on May 26 against the New York Yankees, where he tossed 5 1/3 innings allowing only one run on six hits with five strikeouts in the Padres 5-2 victory.