SAN DIEGO — The second he hit it, Jake Cronenworth knew it was gone. The following second, he wasn’t so positive. Because the baseball veered by the night time towards the right-field foul pole, a second of doubt crept in. Standing in entrance of the lefty batter’s field, Cronenworth leaned to 1 aspect. Slightly physique English couldn’t damage.
Truthful ball. Dwelling run. Stroll-off historical past in San Diego.
Cronenworth’s ninth-inning blast despatched the Padres to a series-opening 7-6 victory over Milwaukee on Thursday night time at Petco Park. It got here after that they had closed their earlier homestand by successful consecutive video games towards Oakland with residence runs from Kyle Higashioka and Jackson Merrill.
Within the course of, the Padres turned the primary crew in baseball historical past to hit a walk-off residence run within the ninth inning in three consecutive residence video games, in response to STATS. They turned the primary crew because the 2019 Dodgers to hit walk-off residence runs in any inning in three straight residence video games.
“The perfect half,” mentioned Cronenworth, “is coming residence, all people’s there, your teammates are ready for you, celebrating.”
Nowadays, the Padres are making a behavior of it.
“It reveals we’re nonetheless within the recreation, it doesn’t matter what,” mentioned Fernando Tatis Jr., who went 4-for-5 with a monster 446-foot residence run of his personal, the longest by a Padre this season, in response to Statcast.
Cronenworth got here to the plate with two outs after the Padres had blown a two-run lead within the prime of the inning. He labored a ferocious seven-pitch at-bat towards righty Joel Payamps. After fouling off two straight fastballs, Payamps hung a slider, and Cronenworth turned on it.
“I assumed it was a homer to start with,” he mentioned. “Then I noticed it hooking and sort of panicked for a second. Then I spotted it was going to remain honest.”
In that second, the sometimes even-keeled Cronenworth unleashed a roar and a livid bat flip. He thumped his chest twice within the route of the house dugout whereas he hopped up the first-base line. Petco Park erupted, the kind of roar solely related to arguably essentially the most thrilling play in all the sport.
Solely two groups — the Mets and the Orioles — even have three walk-off residence runs all season. The Padres have three of them of their final three video games at Petco Park.
“It feels good to be successful at residence, for positive,” mentioned third baseman Manny Machado. “We’re feeding off the vitality of the followers. Simply preserve battling. Any one in every of us may win the sport any given day. … We all know, on the finish of the day, we get in that scenario, anybody that’s up on the plate can ship us residence.”
Machado’s residence run opened the scoring for the Padres, who capitalized on a blunder from the Brewers protection. With one out within the first, Cronenworth hit what gave the impression to be a surefire double-play ball. However second baseman Brice Turang booted it and would accept a mere forceout. Pricey, certainly.
Machado and Merrill would comply with with back-to-back residence runs. First, Machado lofted a three-run blast to the other discipline, then Merrill added a solo shot, his sixth residence run prior to now eight video games. The one heart fielder with six residence runs in an eight recreation span at a youthful age than Merrill? Willie Mays in 1951. (Frank Robinson additionally achieved the feat however performed left discipline for 2 of these video games.)
With the Padres clinging to a one-run lead within the sixth, Tatis launched his moonshot to the far reaches of the second deck in left discipline, the place few hitters ever go.
“That one felt good,” mentioned Tatis, who’s hitting .370 with 5 homers this month. “It undoubtedly bought me swagging.”
The Brewers erased a two-run deficit within the ninth when the Padres referred to as for Jeremiah Estrada to cowl his third recreation in as many days — the primary two of which got here throughout the nation in Philadelphia. Estrada gave the Padres what he had — and a minimum of managed to maintain the sport tied, hanging out the ultimate two hitters to depart Rhys Hoskins stranded after his game-tying double.
That set the stage for a little bit of walk-off historical past. And — as Merrill needed to make abundantly clear — a very powerful a part of that walk-off residence run streak:
“We received three additional video games,” mentioned Merrill. “Credit score to Higgy, Croney, myself, I suppose. However we received three additional video games, and that is the primary objective.”