{"id":352290,"date":"2026-06-08T23:35:13","date_gmt":"2026-06-08T23:35:13","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/352290\/"},"modified":"2026-06-08T23:35:13","modified_gmt":"2026-06-08T23:35:13","slug":"despite-some-thump-san-diego-falls-short-in-rubber-match","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/352290\/","title":{"rendered":"Despite some thump, San Diego falls short in rubber match"},"content":{"rendered":"

The San Diego Padres forced a rubber match against the New York Mets on Saturday night with some late-inning heroics from catcher Freddy Fermin<\/a>. Fermin showed similar heroics with a two-run shot on Sunday\u2019s series finale. But, this time, it was too little, too late.<\/p>\n

That said, the box score doesn\u2019t tell the whole story. The Padres were in an early hole with starter Randy V\u00e1squez surrendering four runs across four shaky innings of work. The bullpen didn\u2019t do much to help, with Yuki Matsui<\/a> surrendering two solo homers and Ron Marinaccio<\/a> giving up another run.<\/p>\n

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The Friars had three rallies quashed by incredible defensive plays by the Mets. San Diego\u2019s been in a major funk lately, but it wasn\u2019t the offense\u2019s fault this time. The at-bats looked good, and the Friars made solid contact, but their luck on batted balls was poor. They\u2019ll hope to turn things around this week against the similarly struggling Cincinnati Reds<\/a>.<\/p>\n

Taking the moundAndrew Abbott<\/a> (CIN) v. Walker Buehler<\/a> (SD)<\/p>\n

Both Abbott and Buehler have had subpar, but serviceable, seasons for their respective teams. The former had an incredible 2025 campaign, posting a 2.87 ERA in 29 starts. 2026 has shaped up to be the worst year of his short career, with a 4.06 ERA through 68 2\/3 innings.<\/p>\n

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However, Abbott\u2019s pitched well when facing the majority of the Friars. The exception to that is Fernando Tatis Jr.<\/a>, who owns a career .385 batting average in 13 at-bats against the lefty.<\/p>\n

Buehler\u2019s had a similar rough year but has bounced back recently. This season he\u2019s been saddled with a 4.53 ERA but has a 3.86 mark in his last seven starts. The right-hander has also not faced much of the opposing team\u2019s lineup. However, of those he has faced, only Nathaniel Lowe<\/a> owns a batting average higher than .200 (five-plus at-bats).<\/p>\n

Buehler just pitched a gem against the Philadelphia Phillies<\/a> last week, allowing just one run across six innings of work. He\u2019ll need to similarly limit a potent Reds\u2019 lineup to help the Padres to a series opening victory on Monday night.<\/p>\n

Batter up!<\/p>\n

The lineup had plenty of bright spots in Sunday\u2019s series finale. Tatis and Jackson Merrill<\/a> went 2-for-7 with two walks. Samad Taylor<\/a> went 1-for-2 with two walks and scored two runs. But player of the game for San Diego was Fermin, going 2-for-4 and knocking in all three of the Padres\u2019 runs.<\/p>\n

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After Fermin caught the last two consecutive games, Dur\u00e1n will start for the Friars tonight. He\u2019s had a good eye for the strike zone lately but hasn\u2019t shown an aptitude for hitting as of yet.<\/p>\n

Song had a great performance in Saturday\u2019s win, going 2-for-2 with a walk. His offensive breakout would be huge for San Diego in moving Tatis back to his regular position in right field.<\/p>\n

Relief corps<\/p>\n

With V\u00e1squez going just four innings, the Padres tasked their relievers to cover multiple innings. Matsui went 1 2\/3 innings in what was his worst outing of the year. Marinaccio went 2 1\/3 in a solid appearance, and Wandy Peralta<\/a> pitched a scoreless, albeit shaky, ninth inning.<\/p>\n

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That will leave plenty of high-leverage spots available for the series opener against Cincinnati. Jason Adam<\/a>, Mason Miller<\/a>, Adrian Morejon, David Morgan and Bradgley Rodriguez will all be fresh out of the \u2018pen for San Diego.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"The San Diego Padres forced a rubber match against the New York Mets on Saturday night with some…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":352291,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[28],"tags":[143911,7,9004,27847,3494,92622,78582,77535,51388,47263,3493,7867,47882,143957,3674,4255,89232,47260,73895,74,76,75,2611,96848,92756,26077,60758,47259],"class_list":["post-352290","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-san-diego","tag-andrew-abbott","tag-california","tag-cincinnati-reds","tag-craig-stammen","tag-fernando-tatis-jr","tag-fifth-inning","tag-freddy-fermin","tag-gavin-sheets","tag-jackson-merrill","tag-jason-adam","tag-manny-machado","tag-mason-miller","tag-miguel-andujar","tag-nathaniel-lowe","tag-new-york-mets","tag-philadelphia-phillies","tag-randy-vasquez","tag-ron-marinaccio","tag-samad-taylor","tag-san-diego","tag-san-diego-headlines","tag-san-diego-news","tag-san-diego-padres","tag-ty-france","tag-walker-buehler","tag-wandy-peralta","tag-xander-bogaerts","tag-yuki-matsui"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/352290","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=352290"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/352290\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/352291"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=352290"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=352290"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=352290"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}