Tatis, Reyes make history in SD's 5-homer win

SAN DIEGO -- Two pitches, two home runs.

Fernando Tatis Jr. and Franmil Reyes set a pretty lofty pace to start Monday’s game. The rest of the Padres spent the night trying to keep up.

In their 8-1 victory over the Orioles, the Friars hit five homers, tying a franchise record for a game at Petco Park. Tatis and Reyes needed only two swings, marking the first time in franchise history the Padres started a game with homers on the first two pitches they saw.

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“Great way to start a baseball game,” Padres manager Andy Green said.

No kidding. It would have been impossible to start it any better.

The Padres weren’t done, either. Eric Hosmer mashed a two-run homer in the fourth and a three-run blast in the seventh. Luis Urias, mired in a dreadful slump since his return to the big leagues, launched an opposite-field homer in the fourth, his first of the season.

“It feels great,” Urias said. “It's been tough. I've been working. ... Obviously, I'm not getting the results that I wanted in the couple games that I had. Tonight, we did a pretty good job offensively.”

Across the sport, there’s been no shortage of home runs in 2019. But even by those standards, Monday’s power display was an impressive one for the Padres. In their 16 seasons at Petco Park, they’ve hit five home runs in a game here only five times -- most recently on June 29 against the Cardinals.

Only once before had the Padres opened a game with back-to-back home runs. That came on April 13, 1987, when Marvell Wynne, Tony Gwynn and John Kruk hit back-to-back-to-back homers against Giants starter Jim Gott.

Those didn’t come on consecutive pitches, however. That feat had been accomplished only once previously in the Majors in the past 15 seasons, when Charlie Culberson and Ronald Acuna Jr. went deep against the Marlins' Trevor Richards last August. Before that, the Phillies' Jimmy Rollins and Placido Polanco were the last duo to pull it off, in September 2004.

“It's amazing,” Tatis said. “Creating that from the beginning of the game is just something special.”

Tatis ambushed a 94 mph fastball from Orioles starter David Hess and sent it into the left-field seats -- a 400-foot blast for his 18th homer of the season. The rookie phenom had barely finished his cursory high-fives when Reyes demolished another Hess fastball 433 feet to straightaway center.

“I was just trying to come out there and attack early and establish a presence of aggression,” Hess said. “That kind of bit me in the butt a little bit.”

Tatis and Reyes are two of the sport’s emerging young stars. Urias, meanwhile, is the club's No. 2 prospect per MLB Pipeline and the presumed second baseman of the future in San Diego. Hosmer is in the second year of an eight-year deal that should mesh nicely with the franchise’s upward trajectory.

Not only did the Padres hit a bunch of home runs. But those homers came from players who might factor prominently into their long-term plans. Despite some recent struggles, the long-term outlook remains bright, and it was on full display on Monday night.

“It was a good day,” Urias said.

With a start like that, of course it was.

Urias makes an impact
Upon his callup earlier this month, Urias was handed the keys to the second-base job. It could be his for either a decade, or 24 hours.

That’s because Urias has been the subject of some trade speculation recently, as the Padres have been linked with a number of the market’s top starting pitchers. That’s only natural. Top prospect MacKenzie Gore is off-limits, and No. 3 prospect Luis Patino is unlikely to be moved as well.

That leaves Urias as the Padres’ most obvious big-name prospect to be used in a deal for a Noah Syndergaard-type arm. But sources said nothing was imminent on that front as of early Monday night.

If Urias was feeling the effects of the trade rumors, he didn’t show it. He took a Hess fastball on the outside corner and swatted it into the Petco Porch area, where he also hit his first career home run last season.

“He's such a good hitter, and we know that,” Green said. “It was a slow start. The first 20 at-bats he had, he came up here, and they were sporadic. He's been more consistent. You're just waiting for him to find his groove.”

Paddack secures seventh win
Green noted that starter Chris Paddack was “a hair off” on Monday night, and Paddack later concurred.

If anything, that says a lot about what Paddack looks like when he’s on.

The rookie right-hander was still sharp over 5 1/3 innings, striking out five while allowing one run on three hits. He lowered his ERA to 2.78, and in six starts since he was sent to the Minors for rest, that mark sits at 2.08.

Paddack appreciated the early lead, too.

“Two pitches, two runs. Going out there to start the second, that’s a pretty good feeling,” Paddack said.