SAN DIEGO, Calif — Manny Machado provided an illustration of how wildly wonderful baseball can be when his “instincts” worked out for the Padres in the first game of Saturday’s doubleheader.
It didn’t take long for the day to change drastically.
The Padres split a doubleheader with the Rockies at Petco Park, winning the first game 2-1 in 10 innings on Machado’s walk-off scramble from second base to home and losing the second 6-2 after their rookie pitcher finally hit a bump and their fielding fell apart.
The second game was managed by quality control coach Ryan Flaherty because manager Bob Melvin and bench coach Ryan Christensen were placed in COVID protocols between games.
MacKenzie Gore’s 16-inning scoreless streak ended in the second inning of the nightcap, and his shortest start in the majors ended with one out and two on in the third.
Gore, who entered the game with a 1.50 ERA in 48 innings, allowed five hits and walked four. He was charged with six runs when the two men he left on scored against Craig Stammen.
The Padres, who scored in the fourth and again in the sixth, tied a season high with three errors.
The plain ugliness that ensued contrasted with the risky brilliance of Machado’s heroics.
Machado is on a course that will probably lead to the Hall of Fame because he hits the ball all over the place when he’s at the plate and smoothly gobbles them up when playing third base.
His physical talents are almost ridiculous. His swing looks like it is made of liquid and possesses the power of a zebra’s kick. He throws balls across the diamond as if his arm had been constructed on an assembly line.
He is the Padres’ most crucial player and appears as though he will be in the National League MVP conversation come autumn. He has 10 home runs and is among the league leaders in batting average and on-base percentage. He entered play Saturday with the highest WAR among all position players.
There is something else he has that enhances all his physical tools.
“He’s got a great feel for the game,” Melvin said. “Whether it’s defense, whether it’s offense. He just has a really good feel. … Not many do like he does.
That characteristic really can’t be measured, except when it provides the difference in a one-run game.
The Padres took a four-game winning streak into the second game in large part because of what Machado called “instinct.”
Having begun the 10th inning on second base, Machado was watching for a slider in the dirt, which pitcher Carlos Estevez has a tendency to throw. So while Machado can run a bit, his head had his legs prepared when Estevez did spike a slider.
His goal was to move 90 feet from scoring, in large part with the idea of helping batter José Azocar.
“I was trying to get to third base to take away the slider from him,” Machado said. “That pitcher’s go-to pitch is a slider. You get to third base in that situation and take away that slider in the dirt, that would be huge.”
As Machado ran to third, catcher Elias Diaz quickly ran down the ball, which didn’t bounce all that far away. But a chance to get Machado vanished when Diaz threw wide of the bag and the ball skipped into shallow left field. Machado, who slid feet first, immediately popped up and ran home well in front of what was essentially a token throw from shortstop Jose Iglesias.
“It’s just baseball,” Machado said. “It’s just knowing what’s in front of you, knowing the score, knowing the situation.”
That’s how the Padres arrived at the best record in franchise history after the first 59 games of a season. (Their 37-23 mark by day’s end was tied with the 1998 team for best 60-game start.)
As wild as it was, it wasn’t all that different than how they have won a lot of games this season. They are now 12-7 in one-run games and 7-3 in extra innings.
The opener of the first scheduled doubleheader ever at Petco Park, a product of the lockout having caused the postponement of the season’s first week of games, was different than the Padres’ previous three victories.
They won Tuesday and Wednesday against the Mets and Friday against the Rockies by a total of 27 runs, something they had never done over the course of three games. They batted .330/.419/.509 in that span.
An offensive correction was inevitable at some point. And it happened Saturday, as the Padres were outhit 8-3 in Game 1.
Trent Grisham’s home run in the third inning provided their other run. That was their first hit of the game, and they would not get another one against Rockies starter Ryan Feltner until Jurickson Profar’s single with two outs in the sixth inning.
They continued, however, to get strong pitching.
Nick Martinez allowed a run in his 5 2/3 innings before leaving loaded bases to Nabil Crismatt, who escaped that predicament and pitched a scoreless seventh inning.
Luis Garcia, pitching for the first time in a week, worked a scoreless eighth. Taylor Rogers pitched a perfect ninth inning in his first game since Sunday. Steven Wilson, working for a second day in a row after pitching once in the previous 10 days, got through the 10th inning without the leadoff runner getting beyond third base to earn the win.
The Rockies tied the game 1-1 in the top of the sixth, when they finally cracked Martinez.
Charlie Blackmon swung at a third strike to start the inning but reached first base when the pitch bounced off the plate and over catcher Jorge Alfaro. Two batters later, Blackmon scored from first base to score on Brendan Rodgers’ double to the gap in right-center field.
Four innings later, the Padres won on a play that a few in the Padres clubhouse opined some players wouldn’t even have tried to advance on.
As he walked into the postgame interview room, Melvin joked, “We work on that play often.”
Then he got serious.
“Talk about finding a way,” he said. “That’s one that we have not worked on. But Manny’s legs have shown up this year, whether it’s stolen bases early on — and a ball in the dirt, you take a chance. It’s just like putting the ball in play with a runner on third. If you put it in play, you never know. And he has to get up and score. It didn’t go as far away (from the catcher) as you would have thought. But another aggressive play by Manny, who helps us win games in so many different ways.”
