SAN DIEGO – With a month remaining in the 2025 season, perhaps even more concerning than San Diego’s 4-3 loss to the Baltimore Orioles, was the Padres seeing reliever Jason Adam carted off after a non-contact injury during the seventh inning.
Padres (76-62) manager Mike Shildt indicated postgame that Adam had suffered a quad tendon rupture, though further imaging would be needed.
The 34-year-old righty, who earned his first career All Star selection as one of five to represent San Diego at the “Midsummer Classic,” went down after delivering a pitch to Baltimore's (62-76) Gunnar Henderson and reacting to a slow bounding ball hit back to the left of the mound.
"I told A.J. (Preller) I'm really glad he went out and got Mason (Miller), that's all I've really processed," Adam said after anticipating a recovery process of six-to-nine months. "This bullpen is so deep, of all the bullpens in the league to not need me it's this one, so I'm excited to cheer those guys on, it's a family out there."
"(Adam) is a real pillar of our clubhouse, we've got a great clubhouse, we've got great dudes... Jason's as solid a guy as you're going to meet and as well respected a guy that is in our clubhouse, which is saying something," Shildt said. "He means a lot to us, we'll be praying with him and for him, but we're going to be missing him."
Jackson Merrill returned from the 10-day IL ahead of the game, but did not play beyond pinch running with two outs in the ninth inning. Additionally, Fernando Tatis Jr. was scratched from the lineup, with Shildt saying Tatis had been dealing with some “lower-half soreness” and the medical staff wanted to “be responsible and get ahead of today.”
In his stead Luis Arraez led off as the designated hitter, collecting three hits to give him 1,000 in his Major League career. The milestone knock came during the seventh inning, when Arraez slapped a curveball back up the middle. He also delivered a two-out RBI in the second that tied the game at 2-2 after Bryce Johnson and an RBI single in the inning.
But the Padres spent the entire game chasing, coming back to tie the game twice against AL East cellar-dweller Baltimore, but the Orioles got a two-out single from Dylan Beavers to score the decisive run in the seventh inning off Robert Suarez after the injury to Adam.
Samuel Basallo hit a two-RBI double as part of a two-run second inning for Baltimore off starter Dylan Cease, then in the fifth inning Jeremiah Jackson hit a first-pitch slider from reliever Adrian Morejon for his third home run of the season. Ramón Laureano had a two-out RBI single as an immediate response in the home half of the inning.
Cease had his shortest outing of the season at Petco Park, scattering five hits and two runs with seven strikeouts and a pair of walks across 95 pitches in four innings of work.
"We have a deep bullpen, it's a talented bullpen, but the way the game's built, and I know it's more from shortening the game, but over 162 games starters are going to have to care a lion's share of the innings and we just haven't been able to get that consistently," Shildt said. "We got eight innings out of our starters last series, 12 the series before that, but we are capable."
Reliever Dietrich Enns earned his second win for the Orioles, pitching 2 ⅓ innings with two hits, an unearned run, a walk and a strikeout, while Keegan Akin earned his fourth save by pitching the ninth.
San Diego has been without Xander Bogaerts since August 29 when he was placed on the 10-day IL with a non-displaced fracture in his left foot, while starter Michael King has been on the 15-day IL with left knee inflammation dating back to August 14.
In the second game of the series, San Diego will send Yu Darvish (3-4, 5.66 ERA) to start against Tyler Wells, (0-0, -.--) with first pitch slated for 6:40 p.m.
This story was updated at 7:58 p.m.