The Padres’ six-game run came to a hard stop in Cleveland, where San Diego could barely get anything going against Joey Cantillo and a parade of Guardians arms in a 6-1 loss.
For most of the night, the offense was stuck in place. The Padres finished with just one hit, and that lone knock came from Jake Cronenworth, a bouncing single that briefly opened the door for a rally. Fernando Tatis Jr. drew a walk before Manny Machado rolled into a double-play grounder that still managed to bring Tatis home and put San Diego on the board.
That lead didn’t last. Cleveland answered quickly when Jo Adell ripped an RBI double off opener Wandy Peralta to tie it up, and the Guardians took control from there. Patrick Bailey followed with a run-scoring single off Kyle Hart in the next inning to put Cleveland ahead 2-1, and the home side kept building, adding two runs in the fifth and two more in the seventh to put the game away.
The Padres’ total of one hit made it the third time they’ve been one-hit this season, according to a follow-up report by Brian Dulik of MLB.com. They also had only five base runners all night.
“We’ve got to flush this one quickly and move on to tomorrow,” Padres manager Craig Stammen said. “We’ll come back and try and win the series.”
Cleveland’s plan was clear from the start. The Padres have been hitting .271 since the beginning of July, the best mark in baseball, but the Guardians leaned heavily on breaking balls and changeups to keep San Diego from ever settling in. Cantillo threw only 18 fastballs in 87 pitches, per Dulik, and struck out half the batters he faced.
“We’ve hit the fastball well all year,” Cronenworth said. “But I don’t think I saw one all night. [Cantillo] threw a lot of changeups for strikes.”
The approach looked familiar after Gavin Williams used a similar mix on Friday, though he had trouble finding the zone. Now San Diego gets Tanner Bibee, who throws his four-seamer just over 22 percent of the time, and Stammen said the Padres may need to make an adjustment on the fly.
“Maybe that’s something we can use tomorrow against Bibee,” Stammen said about Cleveland’s approach. “We’ll find out in the first inning, I guess.
“Cantillo definitely kept us off-balance with cutters and changeups, just like Williams. Maybe we can take a little bit of credit for getting them to use a different strategy.”
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