The Padres failed to get a sweep of the Sacramento/Las Vegas A’s, as poor starting pitching and a lack of offense led the home team to fall 4-2.

Yet again, the Padres were behind on the first batter as Carlos Cortes took King’s third pitch to deep center for a home run.

In the second innin,g the A’s tacked on two more runs on an RBI double by Henry Bolte and an RBI single by Alika Williams. However, in the fourth inning, the wheels came off as King allowed a double and three walks, leading to another run. Ron Marinaccio came on to get Nick Kurtz to strike out, leaving the bases loaded, keeping the game from getting completely out of hand.

The Padres had hits throughout but were yet again unable to get any runs across the plate. They managed to put two runners on base in the 4th before a Jackson Merrill pop-out ended the threat. The Padres nearly scratched a run across in the bottom of the 5th as Ty France, who singled, was cut down at the plate on a Fernando Tatis Jr. double. While he didn’t get an RBI, Tatis went 3-for-5 at the plate in possibly his best offensive game this season.

Finally, the Padres broke the shutout in the bottom of the 6th on a Manny Machado sacrifice fly, scoring Miguel Andujar. Xander Bogaerts managed to get a two-out single and steal second, only for Jackson Merrill to ground out.  In the bottom of the 7th, Ty France managed to tag pitcher Justin Sterner for a home run to right field. However, that was the last offense the Friars managed to scrape together.

Michael King turned in one of his worst starts this year as he got tagged early and often by the A’s. He didn’t have a single clean inning; he was routinely throwing off target and had hit 60 pitches by the start of the 4th inning. He left the game after only 3.2 innings and 81 pitches, giving up four runs and four walks on five hits with four strikeouts. Marinaccio pitched 3 innings with two hits and two strikeouts. Wandy Peralta came in the 7th with a runner on base, gave up a single to Tyler Soderstrom, and then struck out Jonah Heim to end the inning. Peralta would pitch a quiet 8th, only giving up one hit with two strikeouts over 1.1 innings.

Bradgley Rodriguez pitched the 9th –  he would give up three hits and one walk, including loading the bases, but would give up only one run on a single to Tyler Soderstrom and recorded all three outs by way of the K. For the very talented and productive rookie reliever, it was definitely an odd outing.

Luis Medina was the opener for the A’s, going 1.1 innings, giving up two hits and striking out one. He gave way to ‘starter’ Jacob Wilson in the second, who went 4.2 innings, giving up 6 hits and 1 run with 6 strikeouts. Justin Sterner gave up one run in the 7th, but that was it, and Mark Leiter Jr. had an even quieter 8th inning. Hogan Harris and Scott Barlow worked around two walks to get Ty France and Nick Castellanos out via strikeout,t and Fernando Tatis Jr. to fly out, ending the game.

The Padres will play on Memorial Day to start a 3 game series against the struggling Philadelphia Phillies at Petco. Randy Vasquez will try to bounce back in the afternoon game versus Jesús Luzardo.

Loren Casuto

A Native San Diegan, Loren has spent his entire life not only as a fan but an active participant in San Diego’s sports world. In 2006 Loren joined two other die hard Charger fans to create Bolttalk, where Loren was a co-host and regular columnist from 2006 until the Chargers left in 2017. After that he started another podcast, The Grid Podshow, from 2020-2021 with his former co-host and colleague, speaking about the local sports community and popular culture.

When he’s not giving his opinion about San Diego sports, Loren is an adjunct professor at San Diego State and an attorney.