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Padres do a little bit of everything in 5-2 win over Orioles

Kevin Acee, The San Diego Union-Tribune on

Published in Baseball

BALTIMORE — The San Diego Padres routed the Baltimore Orioles by hitting five home runs on Saturday, the latest effort by a resurgent offense that has helped them inch back toward being the team they expected to be.

On Sunday, they hit a big home run as well. But it was a bunch of other things they did well that helped the Padres win a second straight game for the first time in three weeks.

A 5-2 victory over the Orioles was built on some good luck, some good defense and some good pitches made when they absolutely had to be. There was also a really nice slide at the end.

“All of that, it added up to a win today against a pretty good team,” Padres manager Craig Stammen said, referring to the Orioles, who rank in the top 10 in most significant offensive categories. “They’ve got a good offense, and it’s just hard to keep them at bay. Our pitching staff did a great job, our defense made some plays, we had some timely hits, some good fortune. … Overall, very positive day for us.”

Rodolfo Durán’s two-run blast — and at 432 feet, it was a blast — in the seventh inning provided the deciding run and boosted what was for a good portion of the game the Padres’ most meager offensive showing in more than a week.

The Padres took a 2-0 lead in the second inning on Samad Taylor’s bunt single, a two-out ground ball by Durán that bounced off second base and turned into an RBI double and Fernando Tatis Jr.’s soft single up the middle.

Their next hit was Tatis’ bunt single with one out in the fifth inning, which halted a streak of eight straight batters retired by Orioles starter Trevor Rogers, who entered the game with an 8.12 ERA over his previous nine starts and ended up going six innings and allowing just the two runs.

The Padres ended up getting eight hits and scoring five times thanks to some gifted extra outs (plus the fortunate bounce off the bag). But an offense that had surged over the past week was an auxiliary contributor Sunday.

Five runs generally is sufficient for victory, though, and especially when a team executes the rest of the game so well.

“That’s what we’re capable of,” Tatis said of the multifaceted victory. “Just really executed at the right moments.”

While the Padres would love to get more length from their starting pitchers, Sunday was illustrative of what their bullpen depth allows them to do.

Walker Buehler battled through five innings, allowing one run on a solo homer by Jeremiah Jackson in his final inning, before three relievers bridged the gap to closer Mason Miller’s fifth four-out save of the season.

Buehler retired the Orioles’ 2-3-4 hitters in order after surrendering a pair of singles to start the third inning. The final out in the fourth inning was a gift from Jase Bowen, who ran 51 feet and dove to make a catch on the warning track that took away extra bases from Colton Cowser. And Buehler ended the fifth by striking out No. 3 hitter Adley Rutschman with a man on first and Bradgley Rodriguez warming up.

 

“I had a few (4 2/3-inning outings) this year, and that was a big pitch for me,” Buehler said of the cutter on the inner third that froze Rutschman. “So, I feel good about this.”

Rodriguez walked Pete Alonso to start the sixth before Samuel Basallo blooped a single into center field and Leody Taveras moved both runners up with a sacrifice bunt.

The rookie right-hander then struck out the next two batters, ending the first with a 90 mph changeup and the second with a 100 mph fastball.

“That was the biggest part of this game,” Durán said of the two pitchers. “They executed everything at the right moment, and they shut down their game. It was pretty awesome.”

Jason Adam began the seventh and allowed a 4-1 advantage to become 4-2 on a leadoff double by Blaze Alexander and two-out single by Gunnar Henderson. Adam was replaced by Adrian Morejón, who ended that inning and got the first two outs of the eighth — one of those on a vintage Manny Machado grab down the third-base line and long throw to first that Gavin Sheets stretched to the full extent of his 6-foot-3 frame to catch.

After Taveras beat out a dribbled grounder to the left side, Stammen went to Miller.

“That’s probably a point in the game where Adrian, he’s looking at me like, ‘Why aren’t you letting me finish this inning?’” Stammen said. “(He allowed just) a swinging-bunt hit. But … I felt really good that Mason could shut that inning down and then be able to tackle the ninth.”

Miller finished the eighth with a strikeout and — after the Padres scored once in the top of the ninth with help from three errors and Will Wagner’s wide slide and reach in to evade a tag and score on Tatis’ fly ball — struck out two and ended the game with a fly ball in the ninth.

With that, the Padres won for the fifth time in eight games, which has followed a 1-10 stretch. The past two series victories came after they lost four straight series.

“It’s just about us winning series,” Stammen said. “We won the Reds series. That got us going a little bit, and then to finish this one off with two good wins is a big deal.”

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©2026 The San Diego Union-Tribune. Visit sandiegouniontribune.com. Distributed by Tribune Content Agency, LLC.

 

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