Padres superstar shortstop Fernando Tatis Jr. left the game against the Reds on Saturday night in the 5th inning after re-aggravating the left shoulder injury that sent him to the 10-day Injured List in April. The good news is manager Jayce Tingler doesn't think Tatis will be back on the IL.
The other good news is the Friars have a pretty good guy to replace him.
Ha-Seong Kim, the rookie from Korea, took over at shortstop and in the 8th inning of a 5-5 game hit a rocket into the Western Metal Supply building to give the Padres a 7-5 win in front of more than 38,000 fans at Petco Park. The Friars are undefeated since capacity restrictions were lifted, proving that a full house makes a difference in a team's success.
The Padres, opting for a bullpen day and starting Miguel Diaz, fell behind 2-0. In the 3rd inning we saw another one of those really cool moments. Left-hander Daniel Camarena, a Cathedral Catholic High School alum, made his Major League debut at the age of 28. He got Jesse Winker and Nick Castellanos, two of the hottest hitters in baseball, to ground out then whiffed Mike Freeman for his first big league strikeout.
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Camarena was in line for the win because the Padres suddenly red-hot offense put up a couple of crooked numbers. Jake Cronenworth his a 2-run homer in the 2nd inning and Manny Machado smoked a 3-run double to left field in the 3rd to put the Padres on top 5-2. After that Camarena got into a little trouble and ended up allowing three runs with three strikeouts in 2.2 innings of work.
Nabil Crismatt came up huge. The reliever tossed 3.0 shutout innings, allowing just one hit with three strikeouts to keep it a 5-5 game. He handled the 8th inning so he was rewarded with the win thanks to Kim's bomb.
Kim immediately dropped his lumber and walked down the 1st base line. When he picked up his trot he pointed at the Padres dugout, which was going bonkers. The 25-year-old has quickly endeared himself to both his teammates and the Friar Faithful.
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"He's up there battling and all of a sudden you start to hear the stadium, the fans, chanting his name. When he hit that ball the place just erupted," says Tingler. "If you (look in) the dugout and see the true happiness of his teammates and know how much this guy is loved and how hard he's worked to adjust to everything over here. For him to have that moment, I thought, was huge."
San Diego has a chance to sweep their 4-game set against Cincinnati on Sunday afternoon behind Dinelson Lamet.
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