Nick Castellanos broke open a tight game with a three-run homer in the fourth inning Saturday, and the Padres beat the Mariners 7-4 in Seattle to clinch the series. It was Castellanos’ third home run, and it helped San Diego reach nine games above.500 for the first time in 2½ weeks.
The Padres got going early. Gavin Sheets homered in the second inning, then Rodolfo Durán followed later with his first big-league home run off Mariners starter Logan Gilbert. San Diego’s fourth inning was its first four-run inning in 10 games, and the burst gave the club enough separation to finish the night at 27-18.
Castellanos has started to straighten out after a rough stretch. Since April 29, he had 10 hits in 35 at-bats with three home runs and seven walks, but before that he was homerless and batting.143 in 42 at-bats. Saturday’s 386-foot homer looked more like the version the Padres expected when the lineup was assembled.
Craig Stammen said that kind of night is what keeps a good team moving when the stars are not carrying everything. “The big boys can’t carry us the whole season, and so when the other guys kind of pitch in and do their part and carry the load while those guys are figuring their swings out, that’s what makes a great team,” he said. Stammen added that “it’s not about just three or four people, it’s about the entire team, and these guys have bought into that.”
That point mattered on a night when the Padres’ top three batters, Manny Machado, Fernando Tatis Jr. and Jackson Merrill, went hitless in 10 at-bats and entered with a collective.597 OPS this season. Gavin Sheets put it plainly after another balanced win. “First off, I think that those guys are gonna hit,” he said. “I think you’re gonna look up at the end of the year and their numbers are gonna be their numbers. But I also think that we’ve got a lot of pieces in this room. I think it’s a really well-constructed roster. And that’s what good teams do. They find ways to win, pick each other up.”
The Padres do not need every game to look the same to keep winning. They need nights like Saturday, when the lineup that was supposed to carry them got support from everywhere else, and the result was another series clincher in a division race that is already tightening.
