Vásquez's strong start, small ball lead Padres to shutout win

SEATTLE -- The big hitters will get their big hits, and they’re going to start getting them consistently. It’s going to happen.

Until it does, the Padres will be happy to continue winning the way they have been.

It happened again on Friday with a 2-0 win over the Mariners, the Padres’ fourth shutout of the season. San Diego did it with the top third of its order going a combined 0-for-12. But Randy Vásquez threw down another clutch start, the lineup manufactured just enough offense and the bullpen did its normal shutdown job.

The Padres improved to 8-1 in Vásquez’s nine starts this season, thanks in large part to the right-hander’s fourth quality start of the year and first since April 21. Vásquez finished with just three strikeouts, but only allowed four hits and walked none in his six frames, lowering his ERA to 2.68 and his WHIP to 1.11.

With Vásquez providing the blank backdrop, the Padres finally broke through with small ball. Gavin Sheets hit a one-out single in the fourth inning, stole second base -- his third steal of the season, and the eighth of his career -- and came home on Miguel Andujar’s two-out RBI double.

A frame later, Andujar got it started with a single, went to third on a hit-and-run and scored on a Sung-Mun Song RBI groundout -- giving Song RBIs in back-to-back games for the first time in his young career.

That gave the San Diego bullpen more than enough to work with, despite a scare in the eighth when the Mariners put two on with one out. Mason Miller came in with two outs and surrendered an infield single to load the bases, but froze Connor Joe with a perfect slider in a 3-2 count to end the threat. He then came back to work around more traffic in a scoreless ninth and earn his league-leading 14th save of the season.

The Padres are now 17-2 when they lead after six innings, 18-1 when they lead after seven and 19-0 when they lead after eight.