Padres fail to hold lead, drop second in a row to Astros

Kevin Acee, The San Diego Union-Tribune on Apr 19, 2025

Published in Baseball

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HOUSTON — The Padres are hardly the Padres, and it caught up to them Saturday.

Fernando Tatis Jr. and Manny Machado lifted them. Michael King got them as far as he could before making a bad pitch.

The bullpen, the sturdiest portion of their early season juggernaut, faltered.

For the second night in a row, the Padres lost a lead and lost a game to the Astros, this time 3-2.

Tatis hit a solo home run in the third inning and scored again in the fifth on a double by Machado.

With the Padres up 2-0, King was one out away from completing six scoreless innings.

He had walked the first batter in the sixth before retiring the next two. And then he sent a sweeper that broke into the heart of the strike zone, and his last act on the mound would be to turn and watch as the ball sailed off the bat of Christian Walker and into the seats above the 19-foot wall in left field to tie the game.

Jeremiah Estrada, who replaced King and took one pitch to end the sixth inning, surrendered the go-ahead run in the seventh.

The difference in the Astros winning a second straight game for the first time this season and evening their record at 10-10 came on a lead-off walk to Victor Caratini, a broken-bat single Cam Smith flared into right-center field with one out and another flared single into center field by Isaac Paredes with two outs.

Jose Iglesias led off the ninth with a double sliced just fair down the right-field line against Astros closer Josh Hader before pinch-hitter Xander Bogaerts flied out to the wall, Elias Díaz popped out to shallow right field and pinch-hitter Yuli Gurriel flied out to right.

The Padres finished with seven hits, two by Tatis, two by Gavin Sheets and one apiece by Tyler Wade and Iglesias.

The Padres continue to have the best record in the major leagues (15-6) because the Dodgers (15-7) lost.

Being nine games over .500 after their second consecutive loss gives the Padres something of a cushion even as they continue to drop off.

Before the game, they placed left fielder Jason Heyward on the injured list, their third outfielder to be sidelined barely more than three weeks into the season.

And then they ran out a lineup that was a shell of the one they began the season with.

Jackson Merrill and Jake Cronenworth are on the injured list and Bogaerts was getting a scheduled day off.

That is half the Padres’ offensive core.

So on Saturday, their batting order was topped by three stars (Tatis, Arraez and Machado). The next three spots (Sheets, Oscar Gonzalez and Iglesias) were filled by players who joined the Padres in spring training on minor league contracts. The bottom three consisted of a player (Wade) making $900,000 and starting at one of his six positions, a catcher (Díaz) making $1.5 million this season and a player (Connor Joe) making $1 million and playing center field for the first time as a major leaguer.