DENVER — The Padres won’t get very far next month without Manny Machado rounding back into form. The same goes for Dylan Cease.
The two stars aligned Sunday.
Machado’s first-inning homer got the Padres started on a good, old-fashioned Coors Field laugher, Dylan Cease turned in his best start in nearly a month and an 8-1 win kept the Padres just a game behind the Dodgers in the NL West.
Beyond the division, a Cubs loss shaved their deficit in the race for the NL’s top wild-card spot to three games and a Mets loss improved the Padres’ cushion against the current third wild-card team to two games.
Machado had plenty of help.
Jackson Merrill hit his first homer since returning from the injured list during a three-hit game and Gavin Sheets and Ramón Laureano added tape-measure shots as the Padres out-hit the Rockies 15-6 in clinching their first series since taking two of three from the Dodgers last month at Petco Park.
Lauerano’s solo shot in the fifth traveled 438 feet, his furthest homer in more than a year and almost as far as Sheets’ career-best 451-foot blast in the fourth.
And yet that was a foot shy of the 452-foot homer to left-center that Machado hit in the first inning after Luis Arraez’s one-out walk, the furthest homer yet for a Padre this season.
Machado also walked in a run and doubled in showing signs of life after the worst month of his career as a Padre (.590 OPS in August) and carrying a .333 OPS into Sunday’s finale.
The early-and-often runs allowed Cease to largely cruise through five-plus innings of one-run ball. He struck out five to pushing his season total to 195 in his quest for a fifth straight 200-punchout season.
Cease allowed four hits and two walks, with the two free passes coming in the fifth and to start the sixth inning.
Left-hander Adrián Morejón got double plays to get out of the sixth and seventh innings to ensure Cease earned a victory with his best start since a quality start in a win on Aug. 10.
Originally Published: September 7, 2025 at 3:15 PM PDT