Yu Darvish gave up two infield singles over seven scoreless innings and Fernando Tatis Jr. drove in four runs with a pair of home runs as the San Diego Padres defeated the visiting Chicago Cubs 6-0 on Saturday night to even their four-game series at a win apiece.
The Padres scored two runs in the second on a sacrifice fly by Brandon Dixon and a two-out, run-scoring double by Trent Grisham before Tatis drove Drew Smyly’s first pitch of the third over the center field wall for his 10th homer of the season.
Tatis followed singles by Ha-Seong Kim and Grisham with a two-out, three-run homer off Cubs reliever Jeremiah Estrada in the eighth. It was the 10th career multi-home run game of Tatis’ career.
Darvish issued one walk with nine strikeouts. He threw 115 pitches (75 strikes) while evening his record at 4-4.
Darvish had retired eight of the first nine hitters he faced when Miles Mastrobuoni hit a sharp grounder back to the mound that ricocheted off Darvish toward third. Padres third baseman Manny Machado barehanded the ball but threw wide of first, with Mastrobuoni reaching second on the hit and error.
Darvish then retired 12 straight hitters before Dansby Swanson beat Machado’s long throw from foul territory on a grounder down the third base line for the Cubs’ second hit. Relievers Nick Martinez and Brent Honeywell each worked a hitless inning to complete the two-hit, 12-strikeout shutout.
Gary Sanchez and Jake Cronenworth hit back-to-back singles to open the second against Smyly. Kim advanced the runners with a sacrifice bunt to third. Sanchez scored and Cronenworth moved to third on Dixon’s sacrifice fly to right. Grisham’s double produced just his third RBI in 27 games since May 2.
Smyly (5-3) gave up three runs on seven hits and three walks with four strikeouts in 5 2/3 innings to take the loss.
The bottom four hitters in the Cubs’ lineup were a combined 0-for-12 with nine strikeouts.
–Field Level Media
