For the eighth time in their last ten contests the Padres were jamming the post game victory music after the ballgame tonight. While the last two series were against teams generally agreed to be some of the weaker sisters in the league right now, there is no contesting that tonight’s 9-3 romp was over the most successful franchise in all of MLB so far this season, the St. Louis Cardinals. So how did they do it?
We’ll start with Andrew Cashner. Despite a rocky start, thanks in part to yet another error behind him on a routine play, he stood his ground. The error cost him a run, as well as 12 additional pitches to control the damage and get out of the inning. Bottom line is despite the set back and 30 pitches under his belt to start the second inning he buckled down and went to work. He posted an 11 pitch 1-2-3 second frame to reestablish himself and posted zeros over his final five innings of work.
Along the way he really did some nice pitching as well, not just throwing. He used his 4-seam, 2-seam, slider and changeup combinations as effectively as I’ve seen out of him this year.
The offense was stymied by Lackey through the first four innings, then solved his mystery in the fifth. Amarista ignited the rally with a lead off single. Cash then push bunted to the right side but the first baseman Reynolds fired a bad throw into left field allowing everyone to be safe. That was immediately followed up with a bad throw from the left fielder over the third baseman’s head which plated Ninja to tie the game 1-1, and put Cash on third. Jankowski then singled for the second time of his career in as many at bats which scored Cash, 2-1 Pads. Solarte followed with a 2-run blast into the right field seats to make it 4-1. Upton’s RB-1B a couple batter later made it 5-1.
The Cards did not quit and scored twice in the 7th to cut the Father’s lead to 5-3.
More padres damage was dolled out in the 8th. Again it was Alexi who got things going this time with a double, and Brett Wallace came though with a PH home run. Solarte set the table later in the inning for Kemp and he came though as he slammed a 2-run blast in to the left filed bleachers and up the lead to 9-3. Plenty for Quack to give Kimbrel the night off and record the final three outs.
Along with the offensive outburst were some nice defensive plays especially by Solarte and Yonder digging balls out. It was not a perfect game with some questionable base running, and the error noted above, but with a 9-3 win a lot more good things happened than bad.
Of special note was the MLB debut of Travis Jankowski who wasted no time collecting his first MLB hit in is first plate appearance with a grounder up the middle! He followed with another hit making himself one of only three Padres to get hits in their first two plate appearances.
5:40 is the scheduled first pitch to be fired tomorrow by Ian Kennedy, who looks to make it five in a row for the Friars. Uncle Teddy and I will bring you the action on the Mighty 1090!
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One Comment
matt
August 22, 2015 at 8:22 am