Jackson Merrill stepped to the plate in the bottom of the seventh inning with the bases loaded and one out, and the San Diego Padres leading 2-0. Merrill faced St. Louis Cardinals reliever Gordon Graceffo, who issued a four-pitch walk to Manny Machado. Merrill hit a ground ball down the first base line that stayed fair and rolled into the corner. Freddy Fermin, Fernando Tatis Jr. and Machado scored to put the Padres ahead 5-0.
All our homies love Action Jackson. pic.twitter.com/AXi7FqKgXR
— San Diego Padres (@Padres) August 3, 2025
Merrill stopped
at third with a triple and later scored on a Xander Bogaerts sacrifice fly to center field that put San Diego ahead 6-0 en route to a 7-3 win over St. Louis at Petco Park, Sunday.
The Padres had scoring opportunities throughout the game and had runners at first and second with no outs in bottom of the second and bottom of the third innings against the Cardinals. San Diego was held without a run in both innings, despite loading the bases in the third.
The Padres finally broke through against Cardinals starting pitcher Andre Pallante in the bottom of the fourth inning when Jake Cronenworth hit a one-out two-run home run to open the scoring for the Padres.
Jake Cronenworth puts the @Padres in front! pic.twitter.com/snliS2yHwQ
— MLB (@MLB) August 3, 2025
San Diego starting pitcher Dylan Cease labored through five innings on the mound, throwing 90 pitches. Despite the number of pitches, Cease allowed just one hit and one walk without allowing a run. He also recorded nine strikeouts.
Dylan Cease strikes out nine in scoreless start
— San Diego Strong (@PadresStrong) August 3, 2025
Dylan Cease strikes out nine batters over five scoreless innings while allowing only one hit in his start against the Cardinals
Cardinals @ Padres#ForTheFaithful | August 3, 2025 pic.twitter.com/CQ3dAVhddC
Cease turned the ball over to Jason Adam in the sixth inning and Adam made quick work of three St. Louis hitters. He recorded a groundout, and two fly outs on just 12 pitches for a scoreless inning.
Jeremiah Estrada also pitched a scoreless inning in the top of the seventh. He struck out all three batters he faced, doing so on 10 pitches and just missed an Immaculate Inning.
Jeremiah Estrada with as dominant an inning as you'll see. He threw 10 pitches. Nine of them were strikes. The only ball was a splitter that looked like it painted the corner, too. Only one Padre has thrown an immaculate inning - Brian Lawrence in 2002. Estrada nearly joined him.
— AJ Cassavell (@AJCassavell) August 3, 2025
David Morgan worked a scoreless eighth inning despite allowing a walk to leadoff batter Yohel Pozo. He later advanced to second on a wild pitch, but was stranded there when Morgan struck out the next three batters he faced. The three strikeouts for Morgan were part of 16 total strikeouts for Padres pitchers in the game.
Ramon Laureano recorded his first home run as a member of the Padres with a leadoff solo home run to right field in the bottom of the eighth inning to put San Diego ahead, 7-0.
Ramón does this. pic.twitter.com/qIp15zlluZ
— San Diego Padres (@Padres) August 3, 2025
Adrian Morejon came in for the top of the ninth inning and allowed back-to-back singles to start the inning. He walked Willson Contreras to load the bases. Morejon then gave up a single to Nolan Gorman that allowed St. Louis to avoid the shutout to make the score 7-1. Jordan Walker followed with a single that plated another run for the Cardinals to cut the deficit to 7-2.
Robert Suarez was called on to relieve Morejon and end the St. Louis threat. Suarez entered with the bases loaded and no outs and quickly recorded the first out of the inning with a three-pitch strikeout. Suarez got the second out on a sacrifice fly ball to left field that allowed another run to cross the plate to make the score 7-3 with two outs. Victor Scott II singled to load the bases again, but Suarez ended the game when he snared a line drive off the bat of Masyn Winn to earn his 32 save.
May have took longer than we wanted but the Padres win the series finale to take the series pic.twitter.com/c8ru2BHaZo
— Talking Friars (@TalkingFriars) August 3, 2025
San Diego heads to Arizona to take on the Diamondbacks, Monday at 6:40 p.m.
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