Sometimes things just don’t go your way. That was the case for the Padres in a head-scratching 7-1 loss to the Mets on Saturday night at Petco Park.
You could have had a pretty good feeling it was not going to be San Diego’s night in the very first inning. Starting pitcher Michael King broke Pete Alonso’s bat clean in half. The ball left what was left of the stick at 40 MPH, about the speed of your average 9-year-old Little Leaguer’s fastball.
It turned into a double.
The ball hit the corner of the 3rd base bag and kicked off towards the seats, allowing a run to score and setting off a frustrating night for the Friar Faithful. In the 4th inning King made another good pitch, tying up Francisco Alvarez and inducing a soft liner towards Manny Machado, one of the best defensive players of this generation.
Machado muffed the catch. The ball glanced off his glove and into shallow left field, setting up the Mets for a huge inning. That’s just what they got.
With two outs King hit Jeff McNeil with a pitch to load the bases for Francisco Lindor, who has inserted himself into the National League MVP conversation thanks to nights like this. Lindor launched a grand slam to right field, his 26th bomb of the year, to put the Mets on top 5-0. The switch-hitting Lindor turned around against lefty Yuki Matsui and added a solo homer in the 7th inning, which was wholly unnecessary due to the Padres having all kinds of trouble with David Peterson.
New York’s southpaw starter tossed 7.1 innings of 1-run ball, another instance of San Diego’s struggles against left-handed starting pitchers in 2024. The Mets get a game back in the NL Wild Card hunt and now sit 4.5 games back of the Padres, who sit 1.5 games behind the surging Diamondbacks for the 4th seed.
The Padres would do themselves a huge favor with a win on Sunday afternoon to salvage a series split with New York. They’ll have to beat a lefty to do it. Carlos Quintana gets the ball for the Mets against fellow southpaw Martin Perez.
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