Padres don't point fingers after tough loss
HOUSTON -- With two outs in the 10th and the winning run on second base Saturday night, Padres reliever Phil Maton got the routine popup he wanted.Somehow, some way, there would be no 11th inning.Astros third baseman Alex Bregman skyed Maton's full-count fastball to the right side of the infield,
HOUSTON -- With two outs in the 10th and the winning run on second base Saturday night, Padres reliever
Somehow, some way, there would be no 11th inning.
Astros third baseman
About halfway into his route, Hosmer sensed trouble and looked homeward for help. Realizing he had none, he continued his full sprint toward the baseball. He pulled up, only to find that he had overrun the path of the ball by about five feet. It plopped tantalizingly beyond Hosmer's outstretched glove. The Astros, who had walked off with an improbable 1-0 victory, mobbed
"That's my ball all the way," Hosmer said. "I just overran it, put my head down, tried to run in and make up some ground. By the time I looked up, it was past me. It's on me. It's my ball. I'll be ready to go [Sunday]."
Elsewhere in the Padres clubhouse the burden was shared.
"No excuse, you go out there, you catch the ball," Ellis said. "… Looking back, I should've been out there in the mix, waiting for him to call me off."
Added Padres manager Andy Green: "It just looked like two guys that were looking for the other guy to catch it. It's a disappointing end to a heck of a fight."
The Padres kept the Astros scoreless for nine innings on Saturday night after limiting them to one run on Friday. This time, it was right-hander
Mitchell didn't have pinpoint command, but he forced the Astros hitters into some very weak contact. He allowed just three hits -- all of them singles.
"That's a really good lineup he kept off-balance all day," Green said.
The Padres had their share of chances. Three times they opened an inning with a double, and two more times the leadoff man reached base. But Astros right-hander
Mitchell turned the ball over to a dominant Padres bullpen, which wouldn't falter until the 10th when Evan Gattis snuck a slow chopper through the shift. Fisher pinch-ran for Gattis and swiped second base, but Robbie Erlin retired the next two hitters, setting the stage for Maton vs. Bregman.
Bregman worked the count full, laying off a 2-2 slider that might have caught the outside corner. When Bregman got underneath a 3-2 fastball, Maton appeared to have mitigated the call. Four seconds later, the ball touched the grass, and Fisher jubilantly scampered home.
"The way Mitchell threw the ball, the way our bullpen threw the ball … it's just tough to lose on that," Hosmer said.
MOMENTS THAT MATTERED
Leave 'em loaded: Mitchell cruised through four innings on 42 pitches, before running into trouble in the fifth. Nonetheless, he gutted his way through a 30-pitch frame, leaving the bases loaded when he got Bregman to fly to right field.
"A lot of encouraging things to build on for him," Ellis said. "Really proud of the way he battled."
Baserunning blunders: The Padres ran into outs on the bases after two of their leadoff doubles Saturday night.
QUOTABLE
"It just needs to be caught. If somebody takes authority over there, it's probably the easier play coming in than it is backpedaling as a catcher." -- Green, when asked whose responsibility the 10th-inning popup was
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MITEL REPLAY OF THE DAY
Fisher was initially called out trying to steal second in the bottom of the 10th inning. But Astros manager AJ Hinch challenged the call, and replays showed that Fisher's foot hit the base just before
YATES DAY-TO-DAY
Padres right-hander
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AJ Cassavell covers the Padres for MLB.com. Follow him on Twitter @ajcassavell.