Manny Machado's ninth-inning grand slam powers Padres' win over Nationals

Kevin Acee, The San Diego Union-Tribune on Jul 18, 2025

Published in Baseball

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WASHINGTON — The Padres did not begin the second half executing much differently than they generally did before the All-Star break.

Until the ninth inning, when they had to.

After losing their two-run lead in the eighth inning, the Padres scored five times in the ninth inning to beat the Nationals, 7-2, on Friday night.

The somewhat deceiving final score was courtesy of Manny Machado’s grand slam, the Padres’ first of the season.

The first run of the ninth inning scored on Elias Díaz’s second sacrifice bunt RBI of the night after Jake Cronenworth and Jose Iglesias began the inning with singles.

Four of the five Padres relievers who covered the final 4 1/3 innings got out of their appearance without any damage.

A two-run homer by CJ Abrams against Jason Adam in the eighth inning tied the game.

Wandy Peralta, who relieved Adam with two outs and stranded runners at the corners in the eighth, worked the ninth to close out his fourth win of the season.

Friday night’s victory over the Nationals looked familiar in that the defense was superb and the back end of the bullpen was asked to protect a slim lead because the offense didn’t score much.

One thing that appeared different was the performance of starting pitcher Dylan Cease, who shut out the Nationals over 5 2/3 innings.

And as they continue to scour the trade market and work in the batting cage to improve their offense, the Padres will gladly relish an improved Cease.

The right-hander entered the game with a 4.88 ERA and had allowed at least four runs in four of his previous five starts and at least three runs in eight of his previous 10.

At the site of his 2024 no-hitter and working with Díaz behind the plate for the first time this season, Cease recorded multiple strikeouts in four of the first five innings and 10 in all by the time that inning was finished.

He had gotten three groundouts, benefited from Díaz throwing out a runner trying to steal and allowed just three singles.

He was also at 86 pitches and the Padres led just 1-0. So after a flared single by Jacob Young and a fly out by Abrams to start the sixth pushed Cease to 94 pitches, Padres manager Mike Shildt went to left-hander Adrian Morejón to face fellow All-Star James Wood.

Morejón struck out Wood and ended the inning by getting Luis Garcia Jr.

Jeremiah Estrada worked a scoreless seventh despite hitting the first batter and having the second batter reach on a check-swing single. Estrada’s escape was facilitated by Fernando Tatis Jr. catching a line drive by Brady House and throwing to third base to get Josh Bell, who had tried to tag up.

Adam came in and got a strikeout to start the eighth before Young singled and Abrams drove a 2-2 change-up over the wall in right-center field.

The Padres, who are 53-44 and in possession of the National League’s final wild-card playoff spot, scored once against Nationals starter Michael Soroka (3-8, 5.10).

That came in the second inning when Jackson Merrill lined a one-out single to right field, Xander Bogaerts followed with a single grounded through the left side and Cronenworth hit a sacrifice fly to left field.

Soroka was finished after five innings, which got the Padres into the major leagues’ worst bullpen (by the measure of its 5.88 ERA).

They ended up facing seven of the Nationals’ eight relievers and were able to piece together a run against two of them in the seventh inning.

Bogaerts began the inning by blooping a double down the right-field line off left-hander Jose A. Ferrer. Bogaerts moved to third when Cronenworth laid down a bunt single that probably was not a sacrifice because Ferrer and catcher Adams got in each other’s way going for the ball in front of the mound.

After Iglesias struck out, it was a sacrifice bunt by Díaz that brought in Bogaerts to make it 2-0.