Machado's 2nd multihomer performance in Mexico not enough to fend off D-backs in loss
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MEXICO CITY -- The Padres have been kings of the comeback all season. On Sunday, they found themselves on the wrong end of one.
San Diego raced out to a six-run lead at a festive Estadio Alfredo Harp Helú on Sunday afternoon. But the Diamondbacks rallied for 10 runs against the Padres’ bullpen, and earned a 12-7 victory in the Mexico City Series finale.
“We’ve been on the good end of this so far,” said Padres manager Craig Stammen. “We get a taste of what it feels like now.”
International Manny
Only two other Padres -- Ty France on Saturday and Ken Caminiti in 1996 -- have recorded multihomer games in Mexico. Manny Machado has now done it twice.
He launched two more homers on Sunday -- first a missile to left-center, then a three-run opposite-field shot to give the Padres a six-run lead in the fifth. Machado also went deep twice when the Padres visited Mexico City in 2023.
“It’s definitely fun to play here,” Machado said. “Great hitters ballpark. I guess we should play here more often.”
With those four homers, Machado is now MLB’s all-time leader in home runs in Mexico. He passed Ken Caminiti and Alex Bregman, who each recorded three. He also went deep once in South Korea, giving him five in international games, in addition to the 368 that he’s hit in the United States and Canada.
More importantly, Machado is starting to look like himself again at the plate. He’d started the season relatively slowly. (At least bat-to-ball-wise; he was still working his share of walks.)
“I’ve been working on it, still hitting it hard right at people and not getting the results,” Machado said. “It felt pretty good to get two over the fence.”
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The bullpen’s (altitude-aided) implosion
Padres starter Michael King was excellent, allowing only two runs across six innings (amid the high altitude with the wind blowing out).
The San Diego bullpen was not nearly as sharp. David Morgan allowed a Tim Tawa grand slam, and Bradgley Rodriguez surrendered the tying and go-ahead runs on a Lourdes Gurriel Jr. double. Ron Marinaccio allowed four more runs in the ninth.
But while it’s easy to look at the numbers and fault the relief corps … let’s just say there were mitigating circumstances.
“You never want to give away a game where you have a six-run lead,” Stammen said. “But circumstances are different here at this ballpark. A six-run lead and a five-run lead, those aren’t really leads here.”
Sure enough, both Diamondbacks rallies featured their share of seeing-eye hits, and Tawa’s grand slam -- at 100 mph off the bat -- was clearly aided by the wind and the altitude.
“We just couldn’t get out of those two big innings that they had, the seventh and the eighth,” Stammen said. “A lot of ground balls found holes, a lot of bouncing balls with an infield that’s pretty hard. We just couldn’t get it done in the bullpen today.”
Nonetheless, asked for an assessment of his relievers’ performance, Stammen offered only this:
“Move on and go to the next one,” he said
The next one -- Monday’s series opener against the Cubs at Petco Park -- will be at sea level.
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A costly miscommunication
The home runs, the seeing-eye hits -- they happen. (And at a ballpark like this, they happen often.)
In hindsight, the play the Padres will most lament from the D-backs’ six-run seventh inning, came one batter before Tawa’s grand slam.
Alek Thomas bounced a grounder behind second base. Given Thomas’ speed, an inning-ending double play was always unlikely. Still, it should’ve been an easy out for either Jake Cronenworth or Xander Bogaerts.
But the two middle infielders collided, and Cronenworth, who fielded the ball, couldn’t make it to second base in time.
“I thought I got a good jump on it, it was just a miscommunication,” Cronenworth said. “We have great chemistry up the middle. We have done it for years. It’s just one of those plays where we were both at kind of the same spot at the same time.”
Bogaerts had a similar view, but noted that as the shortstop, and given his positioning, he felt the ball should’ve been his all along.
“Thought I had it,” Bogaerts said. “He came out of nowhere.”
The D-backs’ rally was extended -- and they capitalized. Tawa followed with a grand slam. A few batters later, Gurriel’s two-out double put the Diamondbacks in front.
“Its just one of those things, you look back on it, the play’s got to be made,” Cronenworth said.