The Padres’ bullpen can take a long deep breath on Thursday.
Rather, it should take a long deep breath then.
Because a three-game stay at hitter-friendly Coors Field sits on the other side of Thursday’s oasis and that will start a string of 18 straight games that will carry the season into September.
Michael King did what he could to provide an early blow with six strong innings on Tuesday. Then David Peralta provided some late thunder via his fifth homer and the bullpen again walked a tight rope in securing a 3-0 win in front of a sellout crowd of 42,949 at Petco Park.
“We got the horses down there that like you could just turn it over in a (tight) game,” King said after getting the Padres started on winning for the 18th time in 21 games, a franchise first. “Honestly that’s why we’re winning a lot of close games.”
This victory clinched the Padres’ eighth straight series win heading into Wednesday’s finale against a reeling Pirates team that has lost nine in a row and all five so far this season to the Padres.
It’s a push that has the Padres perched atop the NL wild-card standings with the Diamondbacks, but it has not been easy of late as five of the previous six games had been decided by a single run and the Padres were victorious in all but Sunday’s game in Miami.
The Padres only had a three-run cushion at the end after Manny Machado singled through the middle of the infield in the eighth to drive in Luis Arraez, who singled to start the inning and moved to second when Bryan De La Cruz fumbled the ball in right field.
Before that, the Padres had pinned their hopes on King’s gem, earlier gifts from the Pirates and Jason Adam and Tanner Scott stranding runners at third base in the seventh and eighth innings.
Robert Suarez pitched a scoreless ninth for his 27th save.
“It’s been 50-50,” Machado said. “You’re just talking about one week worth of baseball. It’s been tight. I mean, baseball’s up and down. Honestly in that week we’ve been winning games. That’s all that really matters at the end of the day. Two weeks ago, we were scoring runs and pitching wasn’t giving up any runs. Now it’s flipped. Now it’s been we’ve been hitting and we’ve been giving up some runs and it’s been tight games. …
“It’s the beauty of baseball. Every week it’s something different. You just gotta try to come out on the opposite side of winning ballgames and that’s what we’ve been doing.”
Indeed.
The Padres entered Tuesday with a 17-13 record in one-run games and a 28-19 record in two-run games.
Peralta’s 410-foot blast to right in the fifth inning certainly allowed King to breathe a bit easier Tuesday.
He struck out 10 batters in turning in the first quality start by a Padres pitcher other than Martín Pérez since King pitched into the seventh inning in a win on July 27 in Baltimore.
King still needed to tread carefully because he allowed seven hits — albeit on quite a bit of soft contact — but two double plays carried quite a bit of water.
The first was started by Cronenworth at first base in the fifth inning, ending the frame after Andrew McCutchen’s one-out single.
King helped his own case after Oneil Cruz led off the sixth with a single, fielding a comebacker from Joey Bart and whirling to second to start a double play. He then struck out Rowdy Tellez for his 10th punchout and walked off the mound with just 93 pitches over six innings.
“I always judge my outings based on how many innings I can go,” King said. “I think that the most valuable thing a starting pitch can do is go deep into games. And it’s not something that I am thinking about when I’m out there. But the double plays really, really helped that pitch count.”
King did not walk a batter in a start for the first time in 15 starts. None of the hits he allowed went for extra bases and three didn’t crack 75 mph off the bat.
After King’s exit, Adam was the first reliever out of the gate and he stranded a runner at third with two strikeouts after hitting a batter to start the seventh.
Scott also left a runner on third in the eighth despite allowing a one-out double to Bryan Reynolds and Suarez allowed a two-out single in the ninth before ending the game.
The arrival of Adam, of course, was the start a bullpen overhaul that saw Scott and swingman Bryan Hoeing arrive from Miami shortly after.
Since Adam’s arrival on July 29, the bullpen’s ERA entering Tuesday was 2.75, fourth lowest among relief corps over that stretch.
The Padres did not collect a hit on Tuesday until Cronenworth’s leadoff single in the fourth inning and he was promptly picked off first base.
King was still protecting a lead, however, because of the Pirates’ first-inning gifts.
Like Arraez’s leadoff walk, a Luis Ortiz breaking ball that struck Jurickson Profar in the foot and the missed catch at second base on Cronenworth’s would-be, double-play tapper back to the mound.
That loaded the bases and Machado cashed in one run on a sacrifice fly to center field. But the rally was halted immediately after that when Xander Bogaerts bounced to third base to start an inning-ending double play.
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