The Padres spent the first few innings digging out of a hole, then flipped the game with one big inning and a steady finish for a 7-5 win over the Twins.
Minnesota jumped ahead 5-1 after three innings, and the early damage started with a rough night for Casey Mize. He was gone after 2-2/3 innings, charged with four runs on four hits and a walk, and his evening got worse when he slipped on the dugout steps and sprained his ankle.
San Diego had an edge on the mound coming in, but Mize’s outing wiped that out quickly. Kyle Hart then allowed another run in the fourth, stretching the Twins’ lead to 5-1 before the Padres finally settled in at the plate.
Jackson Merrill started the push back in the sixth. After hitting a solo homer in the second, he came through again with an RBI single to trim the deficit to 5-2.
Then came the inning that changed everything. The Padres tagged Minnesota reliever Andrew Morris for four runs in the seventh, using a two-run single from Jake Cronenworth, a groundout from Manny Machado and another RBI single from Ty France to surge ahead 6-5.
Fernando Tatis Jr. added another RBI single in the eighth to give San Diego a little breathing room entering the ninth.
Griffin Canning was a major reason the comeback held together. The right-hander covered 3-1/3 shutout innings in relief, earning the win before handing things off to Adrian Morejon in the eighth and Mason Miller in the ninth. Miller picked up his 32nd save of the season and lowered his ERA to 0.83.
After the game, Mize’s injury became the biggest talking point. He left with a trainer, and Kyle Glaser of MLB.com reported that he was limping in the clubhouse afterward, though imaging came back negative and he is day-to-day.
“I think my spike got caught on like the edge of the step, I guess, and then it kind of just made me slip a little bit,” Mize said. “I tried to catch myself, and I ended up rolling my ankle kind of on the bottom step there.”
Manager Craig Stammen said he didn’t see the injury right away, but once it was clear Mize wasn’t right, the decision was made to shut him down.
“It was kind of out of the corner of my eye,” Stammen said. “I wasn't watching him specifically, but I saw him go down, saw him turn the ankle, and then try to walk it off in the dugout, and it didn't look great.
“We had him underneath, taping it up and seeing if he could go. He wanted to try to go in that next inning and kind of talked us into it like, ‘Yeah, I feel good enough.’
The velocity was down and the movement on his pitches wasn't quite the same, and they were taking some good swings off him. So I just felt like it wasn't right for him to have to try to gut it out.”
In Other News...
Manny Machados Familiar Slump Is Becoming A Padres September Problem
Manny Machados August has looked a lot like a player searching for the right gear at the wrong time. The Padres third baseman has gone through long stretches of quiet at the plate, with his production leaning heavily toward singles and far less of the extra-base damage San Diego usually counts on from him. On some nights he has looked locked in, but the overall pattern has been inconsistency at a moment when the lineup can least afford it.
San Diego enters September with a narrow grip on the NL Wild Card race, and Machados bat sits right at the center of that tension. The Padres do not need him to carry the entire offense, but they do need more than brief flashes if they want to protect their position down the stretch. A familiar slump has a way of feeling bigger in the final month, and for a team trying to stay ahead in a crowded race, every quiet series from one of its biggest hitters tightens the pressure. [Read more 🡒]
Padres Still Face A Real Sung-Mun Song Question
Sung-Mun Song has given the Padres a little bit of everything since arriving, just not much at the plate. In 62 games, he has shown the kind of plate discipline and defensive versatility that keeps a player in the mix, while also flashing above-average fielding and baserunning that make him useful in more than one spot. For a team that has spent plenty of time patching together its roster, that sort of flexibility still carries value.
The larger question is whether there is enough offensive growth left for Song to become more than a limited role player in San Diego. His power and contact quality have lagged, even after injuries and time in the minors complicated his path, but his track record in the KBO offers at least a reason to think there may be another gear somewhere in there. The Padres do not need him to be a star, but they do need to know whether the upside is real or whether his current profile is close to the final product. [Read more 🡒]
Padres Need Walker Buehler To Keep One Big Push Rolling
The Padres have spent the first two games of this series doing exactly what they needed to do, piling up offense against the Twins while keeping their postseason chase moving in the right direction. Now they hand the ball to Walker Buehler, whose recent work has given them a steadier look on the mound as San Diego tries to extend its current win streak and keep pressure on the clubs around it in the wild-card race.
Minnesota counters with Bailey Ober, a starter whose season numbers have lagged behind the Padres' recent momentum, even if the Twins have had their own stretches of success as a team. For San Diego, the assignment is simple enough: keep the lineup producing, get another strong outing from Buehler, and leave no doubt that this push is still very much alive as the series winds on. [Read more 🡒]