DENVER \u2014 The Padres called up Ethan Salas earlier this month and dropped him into a playoff chase.<\/p>\n
The 20-year-old catcher is in the major leagues for the experience. And the Padres\u2019 catcher of the future is being asked to produce now.<\/p>\n
\u201cWe believe in Ethan, and we think he could really help us get to the playoffs and then in the playoffs,\u201d manager Craig Stammen said Wednesday afternoon. \u201cSo we\u2019ve got to make sure we\u2019ve given him enough opportunity to be comfortable in those situations.\u201d<\/p>\n
Salas went out and helped the Padres beat the Rockies 9-3 by making himself extremely comfortable at Coors Field.<\/p>\n
Salas turned around Robbie Ray\u2019s night and turned around two pitches for his first two major league home runs.<\/p>\n
\u201cIt means everything to me,\u201d Salas said afterward. \u201cIt\u2019s a good day. Thankfully, we got the win and got two good swings off today. They just happened to land over the fence.\u201d<\/p>\n
They just happen to have been historic.<\/p>\n
Salas became the youngest catcher to hit two home runs in a game since at least 1900 and the youngest Padres player ever to homer twice in a game.<\/p>\n
The victory at least held the Padres\u2019 playoff position steady.<\/p>\n
They began the day in possession of the final National League playoff spot, 2\u00bd games ahead of the Diamondbacks, who were playing the Marlins on Wednesday night.<\/p>\n
The Padres remained 1\u00bd games behind the Cubs and a game in back of the Phillies, who both won Wednesday.<\/p>\n
It was largely thanks to their top prospect, who began the season in Double-A, was promoted to Triple-A on Aug. 1 and made his big-league debut on Sept. 2.<\/p>\n
\u201cHe\u2019s shown throughout his (minor-league) career that he has the ability to do that,\u201d Stammen said. \u201cAnd for the first time in the big leagues, he was able to show everybody what he\u2019s made of.\u201d<\/p>\n
Salas, who was making his fourth start behind the plate and just got his first big-league hit with a triple on Sunday in San Francisco, led off Wednesday\u2019s second inning by sending a fastball from Mason Adams a projected 426 feet to center field to extend the Padres\u2019 lead to 3-1. His two-run homer off Nick Frasso, which just cleared the tall wall in right field, put the Padres up 8-1 in the fifth inning.<\/p>\n
After Adams hit a batter, walked two and allowed two runs in a 32-pitch first inning, Ray\u2019s first inning made the Rockies rookie look sharp.<\/p>\n
But a little nudge from Salas helped Ray allow just a run.<\/p>\n
Ray also walked two batters and hit one, as the Rockies scored without getting a base hit and were about to load the bases with two outs.<\/p>\n
But after a full-count sinker to Troy Johnston was initially judged by home plate umpire Cory Blaser to be the 16th ball in the 25 pitches Ray had thrown, Salas challenged the call.<\/p>\n
When the scoreboard graphic showed Ray\u2019s pitch had nicked the outside corner to complete an inning-ending strikeout, Ray pointed emphatically at Salas, who pounded his glove.<\/p>\n
\u201cThat was a great challenge,\u201d Ray said. \u201cProbably (changed) the momentum of the game right there.\u201d<\/p>\n
Salas then pounded the next pitch over the wall in center field.<\/p>\n
And Ray, who said he slipped delivering a pitch early in the first and \u201cit got in my head a little bit,\u201d started throwing strikes. He got through the second inning allowing just a two-out single and went on to retire 10 straight batters before surrendering a single and Kyle Karros\u2019 homer in the sixth.<\/p>\n
After Ray (13-8, 3.60) completed his third quality start in eight outings for the Padres, David Morgan took over with a 9-3 lead, allowed a leadoff single in the seventh and then set down six straight. Yuki Matsui got the final three outs.<\/p>\n
In addition to Salas\u2019 three RBIs, the rest of the Padres big lead was built by Ty France\u2019s sacrifice fly and Jake Cronenworth\u2019s RBI single in the first inning, Dustin Harris\u2019 run-scoring triple in the fourth, Samad Taylor\u2019s two-run single in the fifth and an RBI double by France in the sixth.<\/p>\n
It was a reversal of a 9-3 loss on Tuesday in which the Padres had 11 hits but none of them in succession.<\/p>\n
\u201cI don\u2019t think we took yesterday to heart,\u201d said Jackson Merrill, who hit singles in his first three at-bats. \u201cThere\u2019s gonna be games where it\u2019s kind of hard to win the game. That was just one of those days yesterday. It was good to come back out today, score the first inning. We scored the second one, too. It was just rapid-fire. That\u2019s our team. Don\u2019t back down.\u201d<\/p>\n
Salas, for his part, feels more a part of that team since in recent days.<\/p>\n
\u201cKind of feels like I\u2019m playing now,\u201d he said, \u201cinstead of just like being a part of the team just watching. It always feels good to put your two cents into the win. And just after the triple, everything kind of loosened up a little bit. And thankfully, today was a good day.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"DENVER \u2014 The Padres called up Ethan Salas earlier this month and dropped him into a playoff chase.…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":466380,"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-466379","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\/466379","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=466379"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/466379\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/466380"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=466379"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=466379"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=466379"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}