SAN DIEGO - Padres third baseman Manny Machado echoed a statement on Friday, "You don't win a championship by just one player. It takes a whole goddamn village to do it."
Not only what he said was absolutely correct, but his words came to fruition on Monday night in San Diego's 6-2 win over the Cincinnati Reds (31-34) at Petco Park.
While the top part of the order combined 1-for-16 at the plate, the Padres (34-31), who needed a break after losing 11 of their last 13 games, had to find solutions elsewhere. And to no surprise, it had to come from players that don't have as high of expectations of San Diego's big three of Fernando Tatis Jr., Manny Machado and Jackson Merrill.
Their success from earlier this season came from their bench players, who are now regular starters at this point, and tonight continued to be no different.
Players like catcher Freddy Fermin and new faces like outfielders Samad Taylor and Jase Bowen made the impact that this team desperately had to have to get back in the win column.
Taylor found a way to influence the game during the second inning after robbing Edwin Arroyo by making a leaping grab up against the left field wall to record the sac-fly and quickly turned to throw out shortstop Matt McLain at home plate to keep the Cincinnati off the board.
"The highlight probably is more of throwing a runner out, but never take away from driving in a run," Taylor said. "Driving in a run is great, and right now, we're scuffling getting runs in, and any way we can get more runs and keep going, that's all we're going to do."
Fermin made the opening blow to give the Padres the lead during the third inning. He unloaded on a low curveball out to left field for his third home run of the season and his third consecutive in the last three games.
However, right-hander Walker Buehler could not avoid keeping the Reds down during the fifth inning. The frame started off with a leadoff single to Edwin Arroyo, who was called out at second base following catchers interference during Blake Dunn's at-bat, which led to a ground rule double by JJ Bleday and an RBI single from Sal Stewart to tie the game.
Buehler was replaced after giving up a third straight hit and was replaced by right-hander Bradgley Rodriguez, who gave up the go-ahead run in the sixth inning after Arroyo's sac-fly to center field to score right fielder Noelvi Marte.
Going 4 2/3 innings, Buehler pitched a total of 86 pitches in his 13th start of the season and gave up one run on eight hits, two walks and struck out four.
It took awhile for San Diego to get anything going against Reds' right-hander Andrew Abbott, as he retired 10 batters in-a-row and had only given up two hits going into the seventh inning.
However for Cincinnati, that's where the game took a 180, starting off with back-to-back doubles by Xander Bogaerts and Gavin Sheets to tie the game 2-2. That would quickly end Abbott's night, but the chaos in the frame only just begun.
Following the pitching change for reliever Tejar Antone, the two fresh faces Jase Bowen and Taylor executed two bunt singles to return the lead back to the Padres. Fermin also laid down a bunt but would labeled as a fielding error by Antone to load the bases. The right-hander did get himself out of a no-out bases loaded jam, sitting down Tatis Jr., Merrill and Ty France.
The offense continued to generate some momentum during the eighth inning with a pair of singles by Bogaerts and Bowen. Taylor drove in the pair of runners on an RBI single to left field off reliever Zach McCambley and Fermin took home his second RBI of the night with a line drive single to center field.
Their three-runs was the most runs they've scored in one inning since May 22.
"When you score that many runs in an inning, it feels very good," Padres manager Craig Stammen said. "Feels like, 'All right, we're starting to trend in the right direction and create some positive vibes.' It's a little bit more lively and there's some momentum. So, hopefully we can keep that momentum going and bring it into tomorrow."
Just like how they want it, the Padres grabbed the lead and didn't surrender any ground courtesy of their arms of Adrian Morejon, Jason Adam and Mason Miller. They unit combined for 3 2/3 innings pitched, no hits, one walk and seven strikeouts.
"Glad to kind of limit runs, at least, and keep us in it," Buehler said. "We've done really well at kind of taking advantage of bullpens this year. As long as we're in the game when we get back there, we feel pretty good."
First pitch of the tomorrow's middle game will take place at 6:40 p.m. and it will feature a pair of right handers on the mound. For the Padres, Lucas Giolito (2-1, 4.86 ERA) will make his fifth start and Chase Burns (7-1, 2.05 ERA) will make his 13th start for the Reds.
This story will be edited at a later time