Yu weren’t ready for it: Padres 8, Phillies 3

In the first game of an NLCS rematch series, the San Diego Padres jumped all over the Philadelphia Phillies for a final score of 8-3. The best word to describe the Phillies performance is flat, as they could only muster one run before the ninth inning and their pitchers allowed four home runs in a game for only the second time this season.

Anemic offense

The Phillies offense continued its trend from its last few games before the break of struggling to score runs with any consistency. Bryson Stott and Alec Bohm both doubled with two outs in the fourth to score the Phillies first run of the game. The Phillies then made some noise in the ninth by scoring two runs, loading the bases, and forcing Josh Hader into the game, but they ultimately did not complete the miracle comeback. By the time it was all over, the Phillies had stranded 9 total runners and gone 1-7 with runners in scoring position.

Padres starter Yu Darvish went 6 innings and allowed just the one run on five hits and two walks with nine strikeouts. He confounded Phillies hitters all night, generating 13 swings and misses, five of which came off of his curveball. This is despite running seven full counts and throwing 94 total pitches through six innings.

Home run happy

Cristopher Sanchez turned in a solid effort, going 5 innings while allowing 4 runs, one unearned, on three hits and a walk with five strikeouts. The problem was two of the three hits he allowed were home runs, with the biggest being an absolute blast from Fernando Tatis Jr. in the third inning that went to the second deck and traveled 432 feet.

Tatis’ moonshot was the second home run in the inning, with the previous being from Gary Sanchez. It also followed a strange play where Ha-Seong Kim was called out on strikes in a full count, but the home plate umpire was extremely delayed with the call, causing J.T. Realmuto to hesitate to throw to second base in an attempt to catch the stealing Trent Grisham.

Jeff Hoffman relieved Sanchez in the sixth and allowed the third home run of the night, this time on a hanging slider in an 0-2 count to Manny Machado.

Andrew Vasquez was next up, and while he didn’t allow a home run, he did allow 4 hits and two runs and only lasted two thirds of an inning. Jake Cronenworth led off the seventh with a double and advanced to third on a groundout from Gary Sanchez. Brandon Dixon then blooped a single in front of Brandon Marsh to score Cronenworth. Grisham and Kim followed with a double and single respectively that pushed the lead to 6-1.

Dylan Covey entered with the bases loaded and got Machado to fly out to end the inning on one pitch. But he too was later bit by the home run bug after surrendering a two-run bomb to left-center to Juan Soto to push the score to 8-1.

Let’s play two (I guess)

Tomorrow will be a day/night split double header, with Taijuan Walker (10-3, 4.02 ERA) vs. Blake Snell (6-7, 2.85 ERA) at 1 pm and Ranger Suárez (2-4, 3.77 ERA) vs. Ryan Weathers (1-5, 6.08 ERA) at 7 pm.