Padres pound Cardinals to finish 10-game trip even

Kevin Acee, The San Diego Union-Tribune on Jul 27, 2025

Published in Baseball

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ST. LOUIS — The San Diego Padres started and finished strong on their longest road trip of the season.

Hitting and running as if the ground was burning their feet, the Padres concluded the 10-game, three-city trek Sunday with a 9-2 victory over the St. Louis Cardinals.

“We want to celebrate every win, but today was a big-time character win,” manager Mike Shildt said. “Long road trip to hot cities. Last day of the trip. You know, conditions are what they are, but our guys absolutely showed the mental toughness that’s required to be a championship-caliber club.”

Manny Machado drove in three runs and had four hits. Luis Arraez had three hits and scored twice. Fernando Tatis Jr. had two hits, walked and scored all three times he reached base. Xander Bogaerts homered in the seventh inning.

Stephen Kolek allowed two runs, both on a homer in the sixth inning, which he completed before handing the game to the bullpen.

That was enough for the Padres to return home in about the same spot they were in when they left San Diego to begin the season’s second half.

“We want to win,” Machado said. “We know what we have here as a group. And we weren’t gonna just go back home with a losing record. We had to leave it on the field today. And it wasn’t easy. It was very hot. This whole weekend was hot. So the boys really battled and dug deep.”

By going 5-5 in Washington, Miami and St. Louis, the Padres actually added a half-game to their lead in the race for the National League’s final playoff spot.

The trade deadline is four days away. There will almost certainly be some new Padres by then. There might be a few more former Padres too.

What are commonly referred to as the “dog days” will set in a short while after that.

Nine weeks remain in the regular season, plenty of time for many more dips and surges.

But the Padres headed home Sunday with a one-game advantage over the Reds.

This past Monday, that lead was 3 1/2 games over those two teams and the Cardinals, who remain 3 1/2 back. So the Padres are mindful of what they didn’t do on this road trip too.

They won three of the first four games on the trip before fumbling a chance to further solidify their standing. They lost a pair of one-run games in Miami in which they scored five runs and then dropped the first two games here by scores of 9-7 and 3-0.

But they are 12-10 in July after going 18-24 the previous month-and-a-half. And they keep saying if they hit the way they have been in July, the wins will become more plentiful.

Four times on this trip, they scored seven or more runs. They had not scored that many in any of their previous 28 games and had done it six times in the 32 games before that.

They are batting .257 and reaching base at a .323 clip in July, improvements of 28 and 27 points, respectively, over their previous 42 games, dating to May 16.

Their 16 hits Sunday marked the ninth time in 20 games they had double-digit hits after reaching that plateau nine times in the 48 games before that.

What they have done lately is reminiscent of how they began this season with baseball’s best record (27-15) and highest batting average (.269) and how they ended 2024 with the best record (43-20) and highest batting average (.263) after the All-Star break.

“We know we’ve done it before,” Machado said. “It’s not (anything) new. … We know what we’re capable of. So just gotta get to that.”

The Padres began their assault on Cardinals rookie Matthew Liberatore immediately Sunday.

Tatis led off the top of the first by working a seven-pitch walk, moved to third on a single by Arraez and scored on a double by Machado that required him to sprint all the way to second to beat a throw from center fielder Victor Scott II. Arraez also hustled home on the double when Scott’s throw hit a sliding Machado and bounced back toward the outfield.

Tatis led off with a double in the third, advanced to third on Machado’s single and scored on a groundout by Jackson Merrill.

The Padres scored four times in the fourth inning, their third time scoring at least that many runs in an inning on the trip after doing so four times in their previous 42 games.

It was singles by Gavin Sheets and Jake Cronenworth that began the inning before Elias Díaz reached on a one-out sacrifice bunt that scored Sheets. Arraez hit a two-out single to drive in Cronenworth, and Machado drove in Díaz and Arraez with his second double.

Bogaerts led off the seventh by sending a home run to the seats beyond left field. And after Tatis led off the eighth inning with a single and went to third on Machado’s single, Merrill bounced a hit over first baseman Willson Contreras to bring in the game’s final run.

The nine runs were their most since June 10, a span of 40 games.

“It’s going to be nice to sleep in our own beds,” Cronenworth said. “This was a tough series, especially how hot it was, and to get these last two and get the one like we did today going home was great.”

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