Despite bringing the lumber with a pair of home runs as both Ozzie Albies and Austin Riley went deep, the San Diego Padres were able to get the best of the Atlanta Braves in order to send their fans home happy on Opening Day with a 7-4 win.
In typical baseball fashion, what figured to be an intense pitchers’ duel between Chris Sale and Michael King ended up seeing both pitchers stumble out of the gate a little bit. It certainly wasn’t a repeat of what happened in last year’s NL Wild Card series, as Jurickson Profar (who received a hero’s welcome upon return to Petco Park) led off the game with a single and then advanced into scoring position on a wild pitch. Two one-out walks later, the bases were loaded for Ozzie Albies.
At first it seemed like King was going to get away with it as Albies appeared to have grounded into an inning-ending double play. Fortunately, the Braves challenged the play at first and sure enough, Ozzie beat the throw to first and instead of turning back to the dugout empty-handed and disappointed, Ozzie was safe and the Braves were in the lead.
Despite King throwing another wild pitch to put Albies in scoring position, Michael Harris II grounded out to end the frame. The Braves probably should’ve come away from that frame with more runs on the board and the Padres proceeded to make them pay for the wastefulness in the bottom half of the frame — and eventually later on in the game, as well.
Fernando Tatis Jr. welcomed Chris Sale to the game with a leadoff single and thanks to a productive out and a stolen base, the Padres found themselves in a dangerous position right out of the gate. Manny Machado stole second with two outs and Jackson Merrill fired one out into center field to plate both Tatis and Machado in order to put the Padres ahead. Sale threw a fine pitch that Merrill just went down and hit — that’s baseball for you!
Both teams traded scoreless innings before the two teams got right back at it in the third. This time, the Braves got some action going with two outs in the third, as Marcell Ozuna coaxed a walk out of Michael King to bring Ozzie Albies to the plate once again. He picked up another hit in his second at-bat but this certainly didn’t need a review — instead of hitting another ground ball, Ozzie got every last stitch of a 91-mph fastball right down the middle and set it flying deep into the seats in right field for a go-ahead two-run dinger. The first homer of the season for the Braves put Atlanta ahead again and Michael King wouldn’t even make it out of the third inning as well. Again, this certainly wasn’t a repeat of what happened last October.
Meanwhile, Chris Sale stayed out there and continued to fight his way through this outing. Unfortunately, the Padres were able to claw back a run and it all started with Manny Machado hitting a deep pop fly that landed perfectly on the chalk in left field and bounced onto the ledge of the wall running down the third base line for a ground rule double. Xander Bogaerts followed that up with a single that put runners on the corners and then Jackson Merrill picked up his third RBI of the game on a hard-hit groundout that Matt Olson attempted to turn into a double play by throwing home from the seat of his pants. It would’ve been spectacular if he pulled it off but instead the throw went awry and we had a tie ball game again as the game moved into the fourth inning.
Alek Jacob was the man who replaced Michael King and while his delivery was certainly an interesting one to deal with, it was one to where if he left anything over the middle of the plate with his (lack of) velocity, it was going to get crushed. As it turned out, he left a changeup in the zone and Austin Riley knew exactly what to do with it. Riley sent it flying out to left center and the Braves were in the lead once again.
The Braves could’ve had more as Ozzie Albies hit a deep fly to left field that very nearly went over the short fence. Sadly, “very nearly” doesn’t count in baseball when a fly ball ends up landing in someone’s glove, as Brandon Lockbridge was able to make a jumping catch to keep the ball from going over and breaking the game open in favor of the Braves. When the Braves returned to the plate in the fifth, Drake Baldwin very nearly hit his first career homer off of Yuki Matsui but Jackson Merrill once again foiled Atlanta’s plans on the day by snagging it before it cleared the fence. So instead of the Braves potentially being comfortably ahead, we had ourselves a tight ballgame heading into the middle portion of the contest.
Chris Sale ended his day after five innings and the Padres felt that they probably should’ve had another run on the board after Fernando Tatis Jr. got caught admiring a fly ball that ended up hitting the fence instead of going over it. Tatis still attempted to make up for it by continuing to wreak havoc on the basepaths but Chris Sale was able to get out of a two-out situation with Tatis on third base by striking out Manny Machado and Xander Bogaerts to end the inning and end his day. This definitely wasn’t Chris Sale’s best performance but he did what he could to keep the Braves right in it. Sale wasn’t particularly dominant out of the gates last season, so there’s that. Either way, the Braves were in a winning position once he left and that’s ultimately a fine place to be in at that point int he game.
The Braves held onto the inning until the seventh inning rolled around, which is when this game changed in extremely frustrating fashion. Héctor Neris was trusted to hold onto a one-run lead heading into the bottom of the seventh but that ended up being “mission failed” right out of the gate, as career 89 wRC+ hitter Gavin Sheets came in as a pinch-hitter and took a 94-mph fastball that was high and on the corner of the zone and ended up hitting a deep fly ball that just barely eluded the grasp of Micahel Harris II’s glove in center field. The fly ball from Sheets that (according to StatCast) would not have been a homer in 25/30 ballparks ended up being hit in one of the five ballparks (four of which are in California) where it would’ve been a home run. The game was tied at that point but the Padres weren’t done.
Two singles later, the Padres were in business again and Héctor Neris was done without recording an out. Aaron Bummer entered the game and the results weren’t much better. A wild pitch allowed Tatis to continue being a menace on the basepaths and then Luis Arraez did what he did best: Made contact and put the ball in play. His sacrifce fly put the Padres ahead and then naturally, Manny Machado added on another as he hit his second double of the day right down the third base line for an RBI double that put the Padres up by two.
The Braves chose to walk Xander Bogaerts to set up the double play but that plan got blown up immediately when the Padres continued to test Drake Baldwin by pulling off a double steal. It worked to perfection and then Jackson Merrill delivered his fourth RBI of the day with a sacrifice fly to bring the score to 7-4. Plain and simple, it was extremely frustrating to see both the lead and that inning completely get away from the Braves.
Grant Holmes came in for the bottom of the eighth inning to get some work in, which was notable since he’s currently listed to start against the Dodgers to start that series in Los Angeles. He had a very quick outing where he sat down the Padres in order to keep the deficit at three runs heading into the top of the ninth inning. The Padres sent out their closer Robert Suarez to finish off the Braves and let’s just say that giving that guy three runs to play with isn’t the best idea in the world. While they were able to get the tying run to the plate with one out after an error and a walk, Suarez was able to get out of trouble in order to secure the victory for San Diego.
Well that was fun — right up until it wasn’t! The Braves had the upper hand in the initial portion of this game but once it got into the money innings, the Padres were able to get to Héctor Neris and Aaron Bummer in order to turn what was shaping up into a close win for the Braves into a disappointing way to drop a game Fortunately, there are still 161 of these things left and the Braves can at least try to keep the dream of going 161-1 alive with a win tomorrow night, as these two teams will do it all over again starting at 9:40 p.m. ET on Friday night.
