Fernando Tatis Jr. will catch fire again.
Promise.
In the meantime, he’s doing what he can to help the Padres win games.
Take, for instance, a 3-2 win on Friday night over the Pirates, the Padres’ 10th in a row over Pittsburgh dating back to July 2023.
The Padres managed just three hits in the game and not one belonged to Tatis. But he walked and scored on a hit-and-run on Luis Arraez’s sixth-inning double and the threat of his right arm served Nick Pivetta well in yet another quality start at Petco Park.
“He’s just a force in every facet of the game,” Padres manager Mike Shildt said of his right fielder.
Indeed.
Tatis leads the team with 13 homers, but he entered Friday hitting .188/.243/.385 over his last 23 games. Yet even before a leadoff walk and timely decision to hit-and-run ahead of Arraez’s double, he’d impacted the game.
First, Tatis tracked what looked like a surefire double off the bat of Bryan Reynolds into the right-field corner in the fourth inning and fired to second base, sending the Pirates’ three-hole hitter retreating to first base to keep a double play in order.
On cue, that’s precisely how Pivetta got out of the inning. Two innings later, Pivetta nearly escaped another jam after back-to-back singles to start the sixth because Tommy Pham didn’t dare attempt to score on Oneil Cruz’s fly ball to medium right field.
“He shows up every day, does his thing, but … throws like that kind of keep guys at bay on the bases,” Pivetta said of Tatis limiting Reynolds to a single in the fourth inning. “Helps me out, and I’m able to get a ground ball double play after that. It’s just teammates helping teammates. He’s an extraordinary right fielder out there and an extraordinary athlete.”
Pivetta went on to strike out eight over six strong innings to outduel the Pirates’ Mitch Keller in front a sellout crowd of 42,579 at Petco Park, the Padres’ 10th straight win over the Pirates since their last loss to them on July 26, 2023.
The Padres went 6-0 last year against the Pirates and won all three games in Pittsburgh earlier this month.
They won the first game of this series despite the Pirates out-hitting them 7-3.
But they did make their hits count, with Luis Arraez doubling into the left-field corner with Fernando Tatis Jr. on the run to start a go-ahead, two-run rally in the sixth inning. Arraez went on to score the go-ahead run on a play after moving to third on Manny Machado’s flyball to right field.
Two innings earlier, Machado doubled to right-center with two outs for the Padres first hit and scored on Jackson Merrill’s single off shortstop Isiah Kiner-Falefa’s leg.
Three hits. One win. Doesn’t matter how.
“Those are small details that really matter at the end of a long season,” Tatis said. “They’re definitely huge, especially when we’re not slugging, when we’re not feeling at our best. But that’s how you play baseball the right way — moving the ball, moving that line and just being a good teammate.”
After the sixth inning, Pivetta handed the game to the bullpen and closer Robert Suarez finished off three shutout innings from that unit with a perfect ninth, although not without drama.
After a scoreless seventh from Jeremiah Estrada, Jason Adam loaded the bases in the eighth inning after recording the first two outs, forcing Shildt to call on Suarez for his first four-out save of the season.
The first of those outs was striking out Henry Davis to end the eighth on what should have been ball four, prompting a heated exchange that led to plate umpire Edwin Jimenez ejecting interim Pirates manager Don Kelly.
The next inning, Suarez struck out Ke’Bryan Hayes and Adam Frazier before Tommy Pham bounced out to end the game.
“We’re in a situation where we know we’ve got a rested Robert,” Shildt said. “He’s willing to do it and came in, made a really good pitch and was efficient, one, two, three, in the ninth. And that’s why he’s our caballo at the end. “
Pivetta set the tone with six innings of two-run ball to improve to 5-for-6 in quality starts at Petco Park, where he has a 1.69 ERA compared to 4.32 on the road.
For a stretch, this one was as dominant as any of them as he rebounded from Andrew McCutchen’s one-out single in the first inning to strike out six straight hitters.
The double-play ball helped Pivetta out of the fourth inning after Reynolds’ one-out double. Back-to-back singles in the sixth inning eventually led to the Pirates briefly erasing the Padres’ 1-0 lead. Pivetta got the next two outs to nearly escape the jam, but Spencer Horwitz lined a two-run single to right-center to get on the board.
The lead did not last long.
Tatis led off the bottom of the inning with a walk, took off for second on Keller’s second pitch to Arraez and scored easily when the three-time batting champion sent a ball rattling in the left-field corner.
Then Arraez moved to third base on Machado’s fly ball to right field and scored on a play when Pirates second baseman Adam Frazier short-hopped a ball to the plate after fielding a bouncer from Merrill.
The two-run rally ended what had been a strong start from Keller, who allowed just three hits in giving up three runs in six innings.
Keller had retired the first 11 hitters he faced — including a one-two-three first on seven pitches — when Manny Machado lined a ball into the right-center alley and hustled into second base for a double.
Two pitches later, the Padres were leading.
Merrill slapped a 1-0 change-up to the right of Kiner-Falefa at shortstop. He had plenty of time to get in front of the ball, but it appeared as if Machado, making his way toward third base, disrupted his view and the ball kicked off his leg into shallow center field, allowing the Padres’ third baseman to scoot home for a 1-0 lead.
“You do what the game is asking you to do, simple as that,” Tatis said of the small ball that led to Friday’s win. “At the end of the day, we’re trying to be a really good baseball player and those are the details that really matter.”
