Once upon a time, Walker Buehler was considered a big-game pitcher. Likewise, Fernando Tatis Jr. was one of the game\u2019s most dangerous hitters.<\/p>\n
Perhaps both are rounding into form at just the right time.<\/p>\n
Buehler spun a third straight quality start, Tatis homered twice and the Padres beat up on the Twins\u2019 bullpen for a second straight day to secure a sweep via an 8-1 win in front of a crowd of 40,103 on Sunday at Petco Park.<\/p>\n
Tatis\u2019 eighth-inning homer padded the Padres\u2019 lead and gave him 12 since the All-Star break, the most in the majors. His third-inning blast was all the Padres mustered off Twins right-hander Bailey Ober.<\/p>\n
But Ober was at 87 pitches after five innings. So with the left-handed Jackson Merrill due up to start the sixth, Twins manager Derek Shelton called on left-hander Kody Funderburk.<\/p>\n
The move backfired almost immediately.<\/p>\n
While Merrill was thrown out trying to steal second base after reaching on an error, Funderburk walked the next two batters and right-hander Jeff Hoffman walked Xander Bogaerts immediately upon entering the game to load the bases.<\/p>\n
Rengifo then slipped a grounder inside the first-base line and Tatis singled to center, opening a 5-1 lead for Buehler to hand to his bullpen.<\/p>\n
Merrill\u2019s solo shot in the seventh, his second in as many days and 11th since the All-Star break, started a two-run insurance rally that enabled the Padres to rest their high-leverage arms.<\/p>\n
Buehler faced the minimum through 4\u2154 innings, benefiting from double-play balls to erase singles that he allowed in the first and fourth innings. Even the run he allowed in the fifth was hardly a mistake as Brooks Lee offered at a cutter under the strike zone and yanked it over the wall in right to tie the game at 1-1.<\/p>\n
Buehler allowed a shift-beating double to Alan Roden on a ball several inches off the plate, but he escaped the inning without further damage, struck out two in a perfect sixth inning and exited with a lead after 87 pitches (62 strikes).<\/p>\n
The third straight quality start doubled the number he had thrown through his first 22 starts of the season and put a disastrous July (9.82 ERA) even further in his rearview mirror.<\/p>\n
Buehler has posted a 2.73 ERA through five starts in August, while the 126\u2153 innings he\u2019s thrown this year are his most since 2021, before returning from his second Tommy John surgery in 2024.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Once upon a time, Walker Buehler was considered a big-game pitcher. Likewise, Fernando Tatis Jr. was one of…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":441557,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[28],"tags":[181,1334,74,76,75,2611,127,1696],"class_list":["post-441556","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-san-diego","tag-latest-headlines","tag-mlb","tag-san-diego","tag-san-diego-headlines","tag-san-diego-news","tag-san-diego-padres","tag-sports","tag-top-stories-sdut"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/441556","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=441556"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/441556\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/441557"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=441556"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=441556"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=441556"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}