WASHINGTON \u2013 The Padres did not begin the second half executing much differently than they generally did before the All-Star break.<\/p>\n
Until the ninth inning, when they had to.<\/p>\n
After losing their two-run lead in the eighth inning, the Padres scored five runs in the ninth to beat the Nationals 7-2 on Friday night.<\/p>\n
The somewhat deceiving final score was courtesy of Manny Machado\u2019s grand slam, the Padres\u2019 first of the season.<\/p>\n
\u201cToo late,\u201d Machado said of his home run. \u201cWe should have done it a little earlier.\u201d<\/p>\n
![\"San](\"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/07\/SUT-L-padres-0719-02.jpg\")
San Diego Padres\u2019 Manny Machado celebrates with teammates in the dugout after he hits a grand slam against the Washington Nationals during the ninth inning of a baseball game at Nationals Park, Friday, July 18, 2025, in Washington. (AP Photo\/Jess Rapfogel)<\/p>\n
His assertion was in reference to the fact that before his blast the Padres emerged from four days off having to scratch and claw the way they have much of the season.<\/p>\n
On Friday, they played excellent defense, took advantage of a bad team\u2019s bad baserunning decisions and got mostly excellent work from their bullpen.<\/p>\n
\u201cA lot of good things to unpack that game,\u201d Padres manager Mike Shildt said. \u201cI liked pretty much every aspect of that game but one swing, really. I mean, that was a well-played baseball game on our side.\u201d<\/p>\n
That one swing was CJ Abrams\u2019 game-tying two-run homer off Jason Adam in the eighth inning.<\/p>\n
The Padres took a 3-2 lead when Jake Cronenworth and Jose Iglesias began the ninth inning with singles and Cronenworth scored on Elias D\u00edaz\u2019s second sacrifice bunt RBI of the night.<\/p>\n
\u201cWe have to do everything to help the team win \u2013 play the small baseball,\u201d Diaz said. \u201cWe need that to be in the playoffs and the World Series.\u201d<\/p>\n
Another thing they probably need to play deep into October is Friday\u2019s version of Dylan Cease, who shut out the Nationals over 5\u2153 innings.<\/p>\n
\u201cHe has the potential to have a tremendous second half,\u201d Machado said. \u201cAnd be up there with a two ERA and competing for the Cy Young. That\u2019s the type of stuff he has.\u201d<\/p>\n
The right-hander entered Friday\u2019s game with a 4.88 ERA and had allowed at least four runs in four of his previous five starts and at least three runs in eight of his previous 10.<\/p>\n
At the site of his 2024 no-hitter and working with D\u00edaz behind the plate for the first time this season, Cease recorded multiple strikeouts in four of the first five innings and finished with 10 of them.<\/p>\n
He got three groundouts, benefited from D\u00edaz throwing out a runner trying to steal in the fourth inning and allowed just three singles.<\/p>\n
Cease was also at 86 pitches entering the sixth inning, and the Padres led just 1-0. So after a flared single by Jacob Young and a fly out by Abrams to start the sixth pushed Cease to 94 pitches, Shildt went to left-hander Adrian Morej\u00f3n to face fellow All-Star James Wood.<\/p>\n
![\"Padres](\"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/07\/sut-l-padres-0718.jpg\")
Padres starting pitcher Dylan Cease works against the Nationals on Friday. (AP Photo\/Jess Rapfogel)<\/p>\n
Morej\u00f3n struck out Wood and ended the inning by getting Luis Garcia Jr. to ground out.<\/p>\n
Jeremiah Estrada worked a scoreless seventh despite hitting the first batter and having the second batter reach on a check-swing single. Estrada\u2019s escape was facilitated by Fernando Tatis Jr. catching a line drive by Brady House and throwing to third base to get Josh Bell, who had tried to tag up.<\/p>\n
Adam came in and got a strikeout to start the eighth before Young singled and Abrams drove a 2-2 changeup over the wall in right-center field.<\/p>\n
After a walk, an out and a single put runners at the corners, Shildt went to left-hander Wandy Peralta to face Nathaniel Lowe.<\/p>\n
Peralta did not get the left-handed hitter out. He didn\u2019t have to.<\/p>\n
Before he let go of a 3-2 pitch, Bell took off from first base. Peralta stepped off the rubber, Bell stopped. Peralta threw to shortstop Xander Bogaerts, who ran down a retreating Bell to end the inning.<\/p>\n
Lowe led off the ninth with a single before Peralta (4-1, 3.50) finished the game with a fly ball out and a double-play grounder to secure the win.<\/p>\n
The Padres scored once against Nationals starter Michael Soroka (3-8, 5.10).<\/p>\n
That came in the second inning when Jackson Merrill lined a one-out single to right field, Bogaerts followed with a single grounded through the left side and Cronenworth hit a sacrifice fly to left field.<\/p>\n
Soroka was finished after five innings, which got the Padres into the major leagues\u2019 worst bullpen (by the measure of its 5.88 ERA).<\/p>\n
They ended up facing seven of the Nationals\u2019 eight relievers and were able to piece together a run against two of them in the seventh inning.<\/p>\n
Bogaerts began the inning by blooping a double down the right field line off left-hander Jose A. Ferrer. Bogaerts moved to third when Cronenworth laid down a bunt single that probably was not a sacrifice because Ferrer and catcher Riley Adams got in each other\u2019s way going for the ball in front of the mound.<\/p>\n
After Iglesias struck out, it was a sacrifice bunt by D\u00edaz against Luis Garcia that brought in Bogaerts to make it 2-0.<\/p>\n
Most of the game\u2019s offense was still to come. But after all of it, the Padres improved to 53-44 and increased their cushion in the wild-card race to 1\u00bd games.<\/p>\n
\u201cIt\u2019s a great way to start off the second half, for sure,\u201d Machado said. \u201cGreat defensive game, great pitching performance. I think just an overall really good game to start off the second half to get us going.\u201d<\/p>\n
Originally Published: July 18, 2025 at 6:44 PM PDT<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"WASHINGTON \u2013 The Padres did not begin the second half executing much differently than they generally did before…\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":74726,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[5134],"tags":[5229,1582,276,1370,1266,3549,1306,7264,62,7289,67,586,132,5230,68,2969],"class_list":{"0":"post-74725","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-top-stories-sdut","18":"tag-united-states","19":"tag-united-states-of-america","20":"tag-unitedstates","21":"tag-unitedstatesofamerica","22":"tag-us","23":"tag-usa"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/pubeurope.com\/@us\/114878558642088191","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/74725","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=74725"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/74725\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/74726"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=74725"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=74725"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=74725"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}