Through the first 21 innings of baseball at Petco Park this season, the Padres and Giants combined to score two runs. The Padres had gone 22 consecutive innings before getting one run in the 8th of Friday night’s 1-0 win.
It didn’t take them long to double down on that offensive output on Saturday night. Or to quintuple down, as it were. Or, whatever the word for ten times something is.
The Padres scored twice in the first inning and three more times in the third inning against Giants ace Madison Bumgarner en route to a 10-2 win in front of 42,823 fans in the East Village, the second sellout crowd already this season.
It was the kind of offensive output the Padres had been expecting after their off-season makeover. The fact it came against Bumgarner is a bit surprising. After getting the first two batters of the game, the Giants lefty gave up four straight 2-out hits. Matt Kemp doubled, Justin Upton singled him home, Derek Norris beat out an infield single, and Will Middlebrooks singled to score Upton.
In the third, things got out of hand for the Giants, partially because the Padres used some fantastic base running. Yangervis Solarte and Justin Upton singled. Then Norris hit a liner up the middle to score Solarte and took second when the throw was not cut off. Then Middlebrooks singled to center again to score Upton and took second when Angel Pagan decided to overthrow the cutoff man. Finally, Jedd Gyorko hit a missile to left to bring in Norris and make it a 5-0 ballgame.
The final line for Bumgarner: 3.0 IP, 10 hits, 5 runs, 4 K, 80 pitches. It’s his shortest start since June 21, 2011, when he allowed eight runs and only got one out against the Twins.
Fittingly, it was James Shields on the mound for the Padres. In the 2014 World Series, Shields lost games 1 and 5 to Bumgarner. This is not going to be any measure of redemption, but it still had to be a little more satisfying than your garden variety win.
Shields threw 7.0 innings, allowing one run on three hits while striking out seven to get his first win in a Padres uniform. In his first two starts he faced the reigning MVP (Clayton Kershaw) and the reigning World Series MVP (Bumgarner) and had better numbers than both of them.
Shields also got his first base hit, part of a 3-run 6th inning. Every member of the Padres starting lineup had at least one hit in the game.
The Padres even their record at 3-3. They can get over .500 for the first time and take three of four in the series on Sunday when Tyson Ross goes against former Padres Cy Young Award winner Jake Peavy, who will be making his first start of the season for the Giants.
