Randy V\u00e1squez matched Seth Lugo for five innings Sunday afternoon.<\/p>\n
Then he outlasted last year\u2019s AL Cy Young runner-up.<\/p>\n
V\u00e1squez threw a career-high seven innings, the Padres finally got to their old friend in the seventh inning and manager Mike Shildt pulled all the right strings in a 3-2 walk-off win over the Royals on Sunday afternoon at Petco Park. The Padres took two of three from Kansas City after losing three of four to the Dodgers in Los Angeles.<\/p>\n
The walk-off was still in play because Jackson Merrill, in his first game off the concussion list, tracked down a double off the bat of Freddy Fermin to start a relay that cut down the go-ahead run at the plate to end the ninth.<\/p>\n
A half-inning later, Luis Arraez led off with a single, Xander Bogaerts doubled with one out and Jose Iglesias put a second critical ball in play off the bench.<\/p>\n
Iglesias\u2019 first hit, a two-run single, tied the game in the seventh. The last was a groundball to shortstop that allowed Arraez to score the winning run ahead of Bobby Witt Jr.\u2019s throw to the plate.<\/p>\n
V\u00e1squez truly paid for just one mistake Sunday: A middle-middle cutter that veteran Salvador P\u00e9rez pulled out to left to open a 2-0 lead.<\/p>\n
A one out-single from Vinnie Pasquantino preceded P\u00e9rez\u2019s ninth homer of the season. V\u00e1squez, however, recorded the next two outs to get out of the sixth and then retired the side in order the next inning as he completed seven innings for the first time in his career.<\/p>\n
His previous best was an out shy of seven innings last June against the Diamondbacks.<\/p>\n
V\u00e1squez struck out two, walked two and scattered five hits while throwing 63 of his 89 pitches for strikes.\u00a0It was his first quality start since May 26.<\/p>\n
Lugo retired 18 in a row after Fernando Tatis Jr.\u2019s single to start the game when Merrill doubled to start the seventh inning. Two batters later, Lugo was out of the game and left-hander Angel Zerpa had walked the bases loaded.<\/p>\n
Padres manager Mike Shildt had a decision to make:\u00a0Allow the left-handed hitting Jake Cronenworth face Zerpa or call on Iglesias to face right-hander Lucas Erceg, who was warming up in the bullpen.<\/p>\n
Shildt chose Iglesias. Zerpa was then lifted for Erceg and Iglesas poked a single to right field, tying the game.<\/p>\n
This story will be updated.<\/p>\n
Originally Published: June 22, 2025 at 3:37 PM PDT<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Randy V\u00e1squez matched Seth Lugo for five innings Sunday afternoon. Then he outlasted last year\u2019s AL Cy Young…\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":6478,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[5134],"tags":[5229,1582,276,1370,1266,3549,1306,7264,62,67,586,132,5230,68,2969],"class_list":{"0":"post-6477","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-san-diego","8":"tag-america","9":"tag-ca","10":"tag-california","11":"tag-latest-headlines","12":"tag-mlb","13":"tag-san-diego","14":"tag-san-diego-padres","15":"tag-sandiego","16":"tag-sports","17":"tag-united-states","18":"tag-united-states-of-america","19":"tag-unitedstates","20":"tag-unitedstatesofamerica","21":"tag-us","22":"tag-usa"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/pubeurope.com\/@us\/114729513456122086","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6477","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=6477"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6477\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/6478"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=6477"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=6477"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=6477"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}