Close Call: Padres Come Up Short in Miami Comeback Attempt

MJP –

Poor defense behind Dylan Cease led to the Padres’ 5-0 loss to the Marlins. It will be quite difficult to make up for that disadvantage.

They were barely three inches short of actually doing that.

Ha-Seong Kim appeared to have hit a game-tying home slam in the bottom of the ninth inning with two outs when his rocket struck the top of the left field fence, bounced off of left fielder Kyle Stowers, and went over the fence.

The Tigers were down 7-6. After a review by the umpire changed the ruling to a ground-rule double, Kim remained at second base until Luis Campusano struck out to conclude the game and San Diego’s 7-game winning streak came to an end.

Image – Audacy

It was somewhat peculiar, to put it mildly. After bouncing off the wall, Kim’s shot never even hit the ground. It appeared to be a smash hit when seen in real-time. In his postgame interview, Padres manager Mike Shildt clarified the situation.

The regulation states that a double occurs when the ball hits the wall, then the defender, and finally travels over the wall. In Shildt’s opinion, they were correct.

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The correct reading of the rules was definitely used in making the call, therefore the Padres skipper should take his grievances with the book, not the umpires.

“Whether I agree with the rule or don’t agree with the rule, it’s a tough play with the timing of it,” he says. It sailed past the boundary. It skipped over the floor entirely. This is just fantastic. However, the rule states otherwise.

Due to Cease’s lack of sharpness, San Diego required that late run. His most recent appearance was a rain-shortened 14-pitch outing in Pittsburgh. Just the disruption to his usual pattern might have thrown him off.

Although he did not take full responsibility, Cease let up two runs in the first inning and three more in the second. A run was allowed after Luis Arraez fumbled a throw at first base and Kim committed a fielding error, allowing one runner on.

Jake Burger was able to reach the plate because of those two mistakes. For a two-run blast and a 5-0 Marlins lead, Miami’s slugger crushed a Cease fastball at the very top of the strike zone into the seats in right-center field.

In the seventh inning, things became quite intriguing as three RBI groundouts reduced the margin. With a double by Jackson Merrill, David Peralta brought back memories of recent comeback victories and put the score to 5-4.

Even after Yuki Matsui gave up a two-run home run to Jesus Sanchez in the bottom of the seventh, which increased the advantage to 7-4, the Friars still showed some fight.

To set up the unusual ninth-inning scenario, Donovan Solano pinch-hit for Jake Cronenworth in the eighth inning and blasted a two-run home drive to left field, reducing the lead to one run.

The Padres return home to begin a three-game series on Monday at Petco Park against the Pirates, featuring a familiar face in the starting lineup, and they still manage to end their road trip through Pittsburgh and Miami with a sparkling 5-1 record. After sitting out for sixty days with an injury, Joe Musgrove will get his first major league start since May.