Fernando Tatis Jr. had three hits, an RBI and a straight steal of home Wednesday night to lead the San Diego Padres to a 5-2 victory over the visiting Baltimore Orioles in the rubber match of a three-game series.
Padres starter Blake Snell (10-8) gave up two runs on three hits and two walks with five strikeouts in six innings. His major-league-leading ERA rose from 2.63 to 2.65.
Josh Hader tossed a scoreless ninth inning for his 27th save.
Center fielder Trent Grisham homered in the Padres’ two-run seventh after making a leaping catch at the wall of an Adley Rutschman’s leadoff drive in the sixth. That catch proved doubly important because the next hitter, Ryan Mountcastle, homered off Snell to bring the Orioles within 3-2.
Grisham’s 12th homer of the season, off Shintaro Fujinami with one out in the seventh, boosted San Diego’s lead to 4-2.
Later in the seventh, Tatis singled to left with two outs, ending Fujinami’s night.
Cionel Perez entered the game and immediately threw the ball away to first as Tatis broke for second on a steal attempt, with Tatis reaching third on the play. Perez was concentrating on the left-handed-hitting Juan Soto with his back to Tatis when the Padres right fielder broke for the plate, stealing home without a throw from Perez.
The steals were Tatis’ 21st and 22nd of the season.
“Perez was taking his time with Soto at the plate,” Tatis said. “He wasn’t really watching me.”
The Orioles took a 1-0 lead in the first. Rutschman singled to open the game, moved to second on a wild pitch, reached third on Mountcastle’s fly to deep right and scored on Anthony Santander’s sacrifice fly to right.
The Padres took the lead with three runs in the third. Grisham drew a leadoff walk from Orioles starter Dean Kremer, reached third on a single by Ha-Seong Kim and scored the tying run on a single by Tatis.
After Kremer retired Soto and Manny Machado, Xander Bogaerts and Jake Cronenworth followed with back-to-back, two-out sharp RBI singles to center.
Kremer (11-5) gave up three runs on five hits and two walks with four strikeouts in six innings. The Orioles had won each of his previous seven starts.
–Field Level Media
