Xander Bogaerts is slugging and the San Diego Padres are winning.
The two things are very related.
As San Diego starts a two-game series against the visiting Los Angeles Dodgers on Tuesday night, it does so with its second baseman hitting the ball harder than he has all year.
Bogaerts doubled twice and tripled on Saturday in a 9-4 rout of Baltimore, then cracked a two-run homer in the sixth inning of Sunday’s 8-6 loss to the Orioles. Prior to that, 17 of his previous 18 hits were singles.
“I think it’s just the way the game is,” Bogaerts said of his hits. “You get a lot of singles, then you get a lot of extra-base hits. They come in bunches. They tend to do that. I don’t like to have them spread out, but I wasn’t complaining one bit about the singles. I wasn’t getting anything (earlier in the season).”
Bogaerts was hitting .219 when he came back from a 48-game absence caused by a shoulder injury that he sustained on May 20. Since his return on July 12, Bogaerts has jacked his average all the way up to .272 by going 22-for-45 (.489).
With Bogaerts seeing the ball well, the Padres went 7-2 on a nine-game road trip through Cleveland, Washington and Baltimore. They swept the Nationals and took two of three games from both the Guardians and Orioles.
San Diego will look to continue rolling with Matt Waldron (6-9, 3.64 ERA) taking the mound in the series opener on Tuesday. Waldron is coming off a win last Wednesday at Washington, allowing three first-inning runs and then shutting down the Nationals over the next five frames.
Waldron is 0-1 in two starts against Los Angeles this year, although he’s allowed only three runs over 10 1/3 innings.
Meanwhile, the Dodgers come into town after salvaging a three-game set with the Houston Astros by picking up a 6-2 win on Sunday. James Outman, Gavin Lux and Teoscar Hernandez each homered while River Ryan fanned eight over 5 2/3 innings for his first big-league win.
“I think we all grinded it out, trying to pass the baton to the next guy,” Lux said of the team’s hitting approach. “Top to bottom, one through nine, pretty much all three games I think everybody had great at-bats. …
“We easily could’ve won three games, truthfully. We left guys on base the first game, too. I think it was a good top-to-bottom series, honestly.”
Los Angeles will run Tyler Glasnow (8-6, 3.47) to the mound on Tuesday night. Glasnow most recently came away with a loss against the San Francisco Giants last Wednesday, giving up four hits and two runs in five innings.
Glasnow has faced the Padres twice this year, allowing only three hits and three runs in 12 innings while fanning 13.
The Dodgers acquired infielder/outfielder Tommy Edman from the St. Louis Cardinals and infielder Amed Rosario from the Tampa Bay Rays on Monday. Los Angeles also received right-hander Michael Kopech from the Chicago White Sox.
San Diego owns a 5-3 lead in the season series between the teams.
–Field Level Media
