Padres wait out Nationals’ bullpen, rally for win

The Padres didn’t have much history with the arms lined up for the Nationals’ bullpen game on Tuesday night.

But it was baseball’s second-worst bullpen, and their ‘pen is one of the best, even when seemingly running on fumes.

Flummoxed early by unfamiliar arms, the Padres scored five runs over the final two innings and Adrián Morejón was as dominant as ever while working a third straight game in a 5-4 win in front of a sellout crowd of 42,681 at Petco Park.

The win, just the Padres’ fifth in their last 13 games, kept the Padres a half-game behind the Diamondbacks, who won in extra innings in Kansas City well before Machado’s second hit tied the game in the eighth inning.

“Listen, whoever tells you they’re not looking, they’re lying, right?” Manny Machado said of the scoreboard-watching taking place with less than three weeks remaining in the regular season. “At the end of the day, we kind of knew that Arizona won, and we needed to win this game bad. But at the same time, we were down in our game 4-1, 3-0 and then obviously scratched one up there, and then kind of was down the whole game.

“For us to fight and get that victory today, I think, was a huge one.”

Machado’s first hit on Tuesday, his 1,136th as a Padre to pass Garry Templeton for second on the team’s all-time list, started the Padres’ first rally of the game after waiting to collect their first hit of the game until one out in the fifth inning.

Machado singled to open the seventh, Ty France followed with a single, and after a wild pitch, Jackson Merrill put the Padres on the board for the first time with a sacrifice fly.

In the eighth, Jared Simpson walked all three batters he faced, pinch-hitter Austin Hays plated a run with a sacrifice fly off Erik Tolman and Machado made the Nationals pay for another wild pitch by sneaking the game-tying single through the middle of the infield.

France followed with his second single of the game, and Luis Campusano’s second hit of the game, a broken-bat blooper fell in to give the Padres the lead.

Morejón hit 100 mph and struck out a batter while pitching a scoreless ninth for his third save. He raised his hand for the job despite pitching in three of the previous four games.

Closer Mason Miller was unavailable after also pitching in three of the previous four games.

“(Morejón) was thumbs up right away,” Padres manager Craig Stammen said. “I think he’s thinking if I pitch today, I’ve got two days off. You know, and he would rather have the two days off than pitching every other day and would probably say I’ll feel better on Friday now, because I get the days off. So the way he looked, he was definitely capable of throwing tonight. It was one of his more dominant innings that he’s pitched all year. These guys have stepped up all year. They’ve taken the ball whenever I’ve asked, and they’ve done it whenever I haven’t asked, and that’s pretty amazing.”

Casey Mize struck out seven and was an out shy of a quality start when he was lifted for Randy Vásquez, who promptly allowed a two-run double to bury the Padres in a 3-0 hole, which felt especially deep — to that point, the Padres had mustered just one hit off the Nationals’ planned bullpen game.

The names through six innings: Riley Cornelio (3 IP, 0 H, 0 ER, 4 Ks), Zak Kent (2 IP, 1 H, 0 ER), Yovanny Cruz (1 IP, 0 H, 0 ER, BB).

“Yeah, you’re only going to face them one time, so you’ve got to kind of take advantage,” Machado said of the Nationals’ bullpen game. “Obviously, they had some pretty good stuff over there and threw the ball really well. We couldn’t really get anything going, and then to get to their bullpen and start working the counts and start working them in there and getting them a little tired, I think kind of helped us as the (game went) on.

“It’s always difficult when you’re only facing one guy one time through the lineup, but I think we did a good job today with sticking to our strengths.”

Mize’s start was at least a giant step in the right direction after a checkered start to his Padres tenure.

The first impression included allowing a career-high eight runs in 3⅓ innings in his first start after the trade to San Diego.

Mize followed that with two quality starts, then slipped down the dugout steps and rolled his right ankle in his fourth start for the Padres. He avoided the injured list but allowed 11 runs — six earned — over his next two starts (9 IP) to carry a 6.67 ERA as a Padre into Tuesday’s start.

Even the home run that Mize allowed with one out in the second inning was hardly a mistake.

At least not one over the plate.

But Yohandy Morales was ready for the sinker that ran roughly a foot inside of the plate and pulled out to left to put the Nationals on the board.

Mize largely cruised from there, but Abimelec Ortiz doubled with one out in the sixth inning, CJ Abrams walked with two outs and Stammen pulled Mize with 90 pitches through 5⅔ innings.

Vásquez jogged in from there and Brady House promptly doubled to put the Padres in a 3-0 hole. After a scoreless seventh inning from Vásquez, Yuki Matsui allowed a solo homer to pinch-hitter Andres Chaparro in the eighth inning for a 4-1 lead that lasted just a half-inning after one final Padres’ rally.

“Yeah, you know, the bullpen games: There’s a reason people do them,” Stammen said. “You know, they’re tough to handle just because they can match up really well, and if a pitcher’s going, they can take him for a little longer and then bring in a new guy. So most of the hitters don’t face the same guy twice. Makes it tough and it was definitely tough on us for a little while and then we were able to kind of force their hand with some of their leverage guys and had a big eighth inning right there.”