The Padres just kept applying pressure on Tuesday. They have done it all through this undefeated start to their season.
That is the word — and the philosophy — manager Mike Shildt stressed to his team all spring. Pressure.
“I feel like the first six games this season, we’ve just kind of worn teams out,” outfielder Brandon Lockridge said. “… I think that pressure wears teams down.”
When an offense is relentless, it won’t produce every time. But it probably will produce enough.
“We compete every pitch,” infielder Jose Iglesias said. “We compete every inning — 27 outs all the way down. Sometimes it’s going to go your way. Sometimes not. But we stay connected. We kept fighting. The result shows later in the game.”
They didn’t make anything happen early Tuesday night against the Guardians.
Then they pounced. Then they poured on.
And now they are 6-0.
Tuesday’s thorough 7-0 victory, their third shutout in four games, extended the best beginning to a season in club history.
They are one of two remaining unbeaten teams, along with the 7-0 Dodgers.
After they squandered their lead-off batter reaching base in the first three innings, Jackson Merrill’s first home run of the season began a run of five straight innings in which the Padres scored in all sorts of different ways.
“The long ball is not going to be there for us every single day, especially in this division and this ballpark,” Fernando Tatis Jr. said. “And being able to create runs, to create momentum, to move the line is just winning baseball.”
They once again got a little bit of everything from all over the roster, finally rewarding Michael King for a dominant (though not extensive) bounceback start.
King followed up a 2⅔-inning outing on opening day by striking out 11 in five scoreless innings. Just four Guardians reached base and just one reached second base against him.
The right-hander struck out six consecutive batters between the first and third innings. A single and hit batter followed before he ended the inning on a fly ball, and he finished off his night by retiring six of the next seven batters. He struck out the final two batters in the fourth inning and the final three in the fifth.
King was done after 88 pitches, and four relievers (Jeremiah Estrada, Yuki Matsui, Jason Adam and Omar Cruz) closed out the Guardians to extend the bullpen’s scoreless streak to 24 innings.
The Padres took a while to make sure the good pitching would lead to a good result.
Their first batter reached base in the first five innings. The first three of those innings ended quickly and fruitlessly, and Guardians left-hander Logan Allen had thrown just 36 pitches to that point.
“He tries to live on the edge,” Xander Bogaerts said. “He was throwing strikes. He was getting calls.”
Finally, in the fourth, Merrill broke through. In the fifth, the Padres manufactured a pair of runs to go up 3-0. They waited until their second batter to get someone on but added another run in the sixth. A lead-off runner in the seventh led to two runs. Help from a dropped pop-up helped the Padres to their final run in the eighth.
Fernando Tatis Jr. led off the bottom of the first with an eight-pitch walk. Two pitches later, the inning was over, as Luis Arraez popped a bunt into the air and Manny Machado grounded out on the first pitch each saw from Allen.
Xander Bogaerts singled past second baseman Gabriel Arias to start the second. But Merrill ended a three-pitch at-bat with a grounder up the middle that resulted in a double play, and Yuli Gurriel chased a 2-1 sinker out of the zone on a pop-up to first base.
The third brought even a harsher emptiness, as Iglesias’ walk was followed by Lockridge’s double to give the Padres runners at second and third with no outs. The inning ended so quickly (eight pitches to three batters) it could hardly be called a rally, as Elías Díaz grounded out to first base, Iglesias was thrown out at home on Tatis’ grounder to shortstop and Arraez grounded out to second.
The fourth appeared that it would go the same route when Machado lined a single to left and Bogaerts grounded into a double play.
It only took one pitch for Merrill to make sure another opportunity was not fully squandered, as he launched a cutter low and on the inner portion of the plate a projected 411 feet toward right-center field and into the sea of humanity standing on the Craft Pier.
Iglesias led off the fifth by getting his first hit with the Padres, Lockridge followed with a walk, and both runners moved over on a sacrifice bunt by Diaz. Tatis drove in Iglesias with a fly ball to center field, and Arraez drove in Lockridge with a single.
One-out walks by Merrill and Gurriel ended Allen’s night before Jake Cronenworth worked an 0-2 count into a full count and then lined the ninth pitch he saw from reliever Paul Sewald into center field to score Merrill.
The Padres’ final two runs came when they got one hit in the seventh.
Tatis walked again to start the inning, stole second and went to third on Arraez’s groundout to the right side. Machado walked and stole second, and he and Tatis moved up a base on Bogaerts’ fielder’s choice grounder.
Machado then scored on a strikeout by Merrill when Bogaerts took off for second on the pitch and Guardians catcher Bo Naylor’s throw bounced into center field.
Guardians third baseman José Ramirez dropped a pop-up in the eighth, which gave the Padres an extra out and helped Cronenworth, who had led off with a single, score on a groundout by Tatis.
“We find a way,” Bogaerts said. “Once Merrill got us on the board, it became a little contagious.”
Originally Published: April 1, 2025 at 9:14 PM PDT
