San Diego Padres starter Robbie Ray came into his start against the New York Yankees looking for the 100th win of his career. After the Padres took the first game of the series in walk-off fashion on Friday night, the hope was that momentum from that game would carry into the second game of the series on Saturday and allow Ray to reach his career milestone. Neither of those things happened and New York handed San Diego a 5-1 loss.
Ray was knocked around by the Aaron Judge-less Yankees lineup and lasted
just 2.1 innings before he was removed from the game by Padres manager Craig Stammen. In his shortest outing with San Diego, Ray allowed five runs on five hits with four walks and just one strikeout. The left-hander is known as a pitcher who will give up walks, but he will typically work around the traffic and will limit damage if not keep opponents off the board altogether. Ray was not so lucky against New York.
The Padres had their chance to jump on Yankees starter Carlos Rodon in the first inning, but their inability to come up with a crucial hit with runners in scoring position was on display once again. In the bottom of the first inning, Xander Bogaerts, who was batting second for the first time in a long time, singled with one out in the frame. He stole second to get into scoring position and then advanced to third when the throw got away and rolled into center field. Bogaerts was standing on third with one out in the inning and Manny Machado at the plate. It appeared Rodon wanted no part of Machado and he walked on four pitches to put runners at the corners.
Ty France came up with with runners on the corners and a chance to give San Diego a first inning lead. France struck out on five pitches. Jackson Merrill who has been the definition of streaky as of late, took his turn at bat with two runners in scoring position after Machado stole second base and he too struck out to waste the scoring opportunity and end the inning. Had the Padres been able to come up with at least a run, things may have played out differently for the remainder of the game.
Ray took the mound in the top of the second and allowed a single to start the inning. He then got a strikeout and a groundout and seemed to be finding a rhythm. Ray then allowed an RBI-double to Spencer Jones to give the Yankees a 1-0 lead. Ray then issued three consecutive walks to load the bases and bring home New York’s second run of the game. Cody Bellinger took advantage of Ray trying to get consistent pitches in the strike zone and ripped the second pitch of his at-bat into right field to score to more runs to give the Yankees a 4-0 advantage. Ray got out of the inning one batter later when Amed Rosario grounded into a force out.
Ray came back to the mound in the top of the third after the Padres went down in order in the bottom of the second. He issued his fourth walk of the game to start the inning and then gave up a single to his old teammate with the San Francisco Giants Heliot Ramos. The single allowed Ben Rice who walked to open the inning to advance to third base. He scored on batter later when George Lombard Jr. hit a sacrifice fly to right field to give New York a 5-0 lead. Ray allowed another single to Jones before he was replaced by Griffin Canning.
San Diego kept New York off the scoreboard for the remainder of the game, but the Padres offense could not get anything going against Rodon. The lone run for the Friars came off the bat of Machado, who homered to leadoff the bottom of the fourth inning. The Machado home run was one of just three hits on the day for San Diego. The first hit came in the first inning from Bogaerts and the last came in the bottom of the ninth when Austin Hays reached on a single.
San Diego will try to win the rubber match today when the Padres and Yankees conclude their series at 1:10 p.m.
Padres News:
- The Padres had a difficult week on the road and are now fighting for their playoff lives.
- Despite all the big names on the San Diego roster, Cheri Bell of Gaslamp Ball believes Ty France is the team MVP.
Baseball News:
- Zack Wheeler struck out nine batters to leadoff the Philadelphia Phillies past the Atlanta Braves.
- Munetaka Murakami hit his 30th home run of the season, but the Minnesota Twins spoiled the day with a win over the Chicago White Sox.
- Rafael Devers delivered a win for the San Francisco Giants over the New York Mets.
- The Chicago Cubs won a tight game over the Miami Marlins.
- The Arizona Diamondbacks edged the Houston Astros and moved back into the final Wild Card spot.
- The Los Angeles Dodgers were without Shohei Ohtani, but they still had enough to to beat the Washington Nationals.
