The San Diego Padres proved once more that they have plenty of offense, scoring seven runs in seven innings against the Atlanta Braves on Monday, and it turned out to be enough to overcome a leaky bullpen that allowed four runs in the final inning of the game.
Jason Marquis, who was not expected to be one of the better pitchers in the Padres’ rotation in 2013, spun another gem and picked up his eighth win (8-2 on the season). He went 7.2 innings and gave up just two earned runs before running out of gas and getting replaced by Tommy Layne.
Tim Stauffer was handed a five-run lead heading into the top of the 9th and managed to record just one out while giving up three runs to the Braves. Dale Thayer wasn’t much better, giving up a solo home run to Jason Heyward in between the final two outs of the game. Thayer was credited with his first save of the season.
The stars of the game for San Diego were a bit unexpected.
Logan Forsythe, in his first at-bat of the season and in his first game back from injury, hit a solo home run. He followed that up with a single and a walk, finishing the day 2-for-2 with two hits, two runs scored, an RBI and a home run. Not a bad way to return to the team.
Will Venable, who has been struggling lately after starting the season on fire, hit his eighth home run of the season, tying him for the team lead. The three-run shot broke open the game in the fourth inning, and put Venable within range (24) of passing Jedd Gyorko (25) and Yonder Alonso (29) for the team lead in RBI before those two are able to return from the disabled list.
The San Diego Padres may be under .500, with a record of 30-34, but they don’t have a lot of flaws. They can hit, they can run and they can play defense. Ironically enough for a franchise that has always had great pitching but has struggled to do those other things, the 2013 Padres don’t seem to have enough pitching to put together the type of winning streaks necessary in the regular season for a team to make it into the playoffs. At the very least, being this close to contention will make for an interesting trade deadline on July 31.