SAN DIEGO – The third was the highest scoring inning of the season so far for the Padres, but Logan Webb and the Giants shut things down the rest of the way as San Diego fell to San Francisco 9-3 on Tuesday at Petco Park.
Fernando Tatis Jr reached twice, including stealing a base and scoring the opening Brown and Gold run of the three-score third, but Willy Adames became the first Giant to record a four-hit game this season, leading the game off with a solo home run and finishing with two runs scored and two RBI. Jun Hoo Lee added three hits and three RBI for the visitors, who pounded out 16 hits in the evening.
The success in the third came thanks to San Diego (1-4) grinding their way through 25 pitches and aided by two free passes. Tatis and Manny Machado each worked one-out walks, then Jackson Merrill singled home Tatis. Machado came home on an infield ground out by Xander Bogaerts, then Miguel Andujar drove home Merrill by jumping on a high sinker and shooting it out into right field.
The Padres let early opportunities against Giants’ (2-3) starter Webb come up empty, as San Diego had seven base runners over the first three innings. But Webb retired the last ten batters he faced to earn his first win win, finishing with three hits and 3 runs allowed with five strikeouts and four walks in six innings with 104 pitches.
"It's tough when you get down early, especially in that first inning where you get in the dugout and you're already down three...we made a little bit of a comeback there still down one, and we've just got to be able to hold that deficit as long as we can and give our offense a chance," manager Craig Stammen said. "Webb turned his game up and then we struggled to hold them down in the sixth inning."
Otherwise, the Padres again weren’t able to get much going as they did not get the lead-off runner aboard until Nick Castellanos’ double in the seventh against reliever JT Brubaker. Three of five runners were stranded in scoring position, as both of the hits with runners in scoring position came in the third inning of the eight chances overall.
Meanwhile San Francisco jumped on Germán Márquez early in his San Diego debut, as Adames cracked the second pitch of the game off the top of the wall and over down the left field line on a low knuckle curve. It was the first of 16 hits in the game for the visitors.
It was part of a three-run first for Giants, as Heliot Ramos drew a one-out walk and Matt Chapman dumped an up-and-in sinker out to left center with two down. Lee followed by turning on another low knuckle curve, hitting it off the right field wall for a two-RBI double.
San Francisco made it as many runs through the first three innings as their first four games of the season when Matt Chapman led off with a home run on an elevated four-seam fastball that just got out into the first row to left field. The two pitches that the Giants hit out were the pitches that Márquez allowed the most long balls against, with 11 coming off four seamers and eight on the knuckle curve.
"You could tell right away he didn't have his breaking ball, and that's his bread and butter, and they were on it pretty hard tonight... Hopefully his next start is better, and he gets that breaking ball going like we saw in Spring Training and then we'll be in good shape," Stammen said.
That would be all for Márquez, who lasted just three innings allowed eight hits and four (earned) runs in three innings with a walk and strikeout to take the loss. Facing the club that he’s taken the most losses against in his career, Márquez’s start saw similar results to his two at Petco Park last season with the Rockies, where he allowed 17 hits and 13 runs (a dozen earned) in seven innings.
Kyle Hart was able to hold the Giants at bay through his first two innings, getting the benefit of a 9-6-5 relay to catch Lee trying to advance to third base and end the fifth after the ball had bounced free for a moment from Tatis.
But the wheels fell off in the sixth inning, as Harrison Bader led off with a double and Patrick Bailey walked. After a looking K, Adames roped his third hit of the game for an RBI single, then Rafael Devers loaded the bases with a soft single up the first base line that Sheets and Hart couldn’t convert for an out at first.
"I wanted him to face Devers. Kyle had been pitching really well to that point, it just felt like he was the guy at that moment," Stammen said. "I trusted Kyle in that situation, he's been throwing the ball really well (and) really cruised through the first two innings, so I felt comfortable with him for the third."
Bradgley Rodriguez then allowed a two-RBI single to Ramos and a Luis Arraez sacrifice fly to complete the four-run inning by the visitors.
San Francisco tacked on their final run of the game in the ninth against David Morgan, with Lee blooping a single to shallow left that scored pinch runner Jared Oliva, who had replaced Arraez in the lineup after the second baseman became the last Giants starter to collect a hit.
The finale of San Diego’s six-game, season-opening home stand will see righty Nick Pivetta return to the hill for the Padres. San Francisco counters with 33-year-old right-hander Adrian Houser, who will be making his season debut after going 8-5 with a 3.31 ERA across 21 starts as a member of the Chicago White Sox and Tampa Bay Rays last season.
First pitch is scheduled for 1:10 p.m. at Petco Park, with the next six games coming on the road.
This story was updated at 10:26 p.m.