![\"Jackson](\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/08\/SUT-L-padres-0809-031.jpg\")
Jackson Merrill #3 of the San Diego Padres rounds the bases after a home run against the Houston Astros during the third inning at Petco Park on Saturday, Aug. 8, 2026 in San Diego, California. (Meg McLaughlin \/ The San Diego Union-Tribune)<\/p>\nThe Padres expect their trade deadline acquisitions to eventually stabilize the rotation.<\/p>\n
The pitching staff looks even better when this version of Michael King shows up.<\/p>\n
King threw six strong innings, Jackson Merrill homered for the seventh time since the All-Star break and the Padres beat the Houston Astros 3-2 on Saturday in front of a sellout crowd of 41,937 on Saturday at Petco Park.<\/p>\n
\u201cYou\u2019re looking for games like that where he\u2019s kind of in control the whole game,\u201d Padres manager Craig Stammen said. \u201cHe\u2019s got his good fastball command. He\u2019s got all of his pitches working, and he\u2019s able to go deep in the game. Six innings \u2014 he probably could have (gone) another inning. We decided to go to our pen, because we had them ready to go, but yeah, if we get that from Michael King, we\u2019ll be in good shape here the rest of the way.\u201d<\/p>\n
Still, the Padres will need help to get to where they want \u2014 and they got some on Saturday. They are a game behind the Diamondbacks and Phillies in the race for the NL\u2019s third wild-card spot after both teams lost Saturday. The Marlins, meantime, are two games behind the Padres with 44 games left in the season.<\/p>\n
\u201cIt\u2019s hard not to, honestly,\u201d Stammen said of watching scores around the league. \u201cBut the one thing that we cannot do is determine the outcome of another game. The only outcome that we can determine is our own game, and we\u2019ve got to stay focused on that.\u201d<\/p>\n
They did just that Saturday throughout a nip-and-tuck game with the AL West leaders.<\/p>\n
Merrill\u2019s home run answered the one run that King allowed. The Padres tacked on another on an error in the fourth inning and the Padres\u2019 bullpen tallied the final nine outs, although not without some drama.<\/p>\n
Adri\u00e1n Morej\u00f3n walked a batter to load the bases in the seventh inning before striking out pinch-hitter Jake Meyers with the bases loaded to clean up Jeremiah Estrada\u2019s mess. The 27-year-old left-hander then turned in a scoreless eighth and Mason Miller converted his career-high 29th save despite hitting a batter and giving up a run-scoring single.<\/p>\n
The damage might have been worse had Ty France not made a diving play to his right and had Miller not gone to his knees to reel in a low throw to first base for an adventurous first out in a hairy inning that began with the Padres\u2019 closer drilling Christian Walker with a 102 mph fastball.<\/p>\n
The win improved the Padres to 41-4 when leading after six innings, 46-1 when leading after seven and 49-0 when leading after eight.<\/p>\n
\u201cWe get it to the bullpen in the seventh inning and we\u2019re up, it just feels like we got it,\u201d Merrill said. \u201cI trust our guys back there, but I trust our starters too. You know, everybody heats up. Everybody goes through slumps, so I\u2019m confident in those guys too.\u201d<\/p>\n
As far as the rotation goes, King is at the top of the confidence meter, even if the team is somehow 10-14 in his starts this year. He leads the team in innings (136\u2153) and the starters in ERA (3.37), but he\u2019s talked often and at length about grinding to regain the feel he had before losing much of the 2025 season to injury.<\/p>\n
Saturday\u2019s effort was another step in the right direction, even if just a step in King\u2019s view. He struck out six, walked one and allowed three hits while throwing 64 of his 93 pitches for strikes.<\/p>\n
He only paid for one hit: a solo homer from former Padres prospect Taylor Trammell to right-center off a four-seamer just above the zone.<\/p>\n
The blast tied the game at 1-1 in the second inning. The Padres retook the lead in the third inning on Merrill\u2019s home run and a double-play ball helped King out of the top of the fourth inning, the start of seven straight outs to end his outing.<\/p>\n
\u201cStill not there,\u201d King said. \u201cToday was a better one. Sinker command was a lot better, and when I have my sinker on, it makes everything else play up. But sweeper was really bad. Changeup was pretty good. So I\u2019ve got to, especially to roll through a ton of righties, I\u2019ve got to have that sweeper. And yeah, we\u2019re still making adjustments.\u201d<\/p>\n
Jackson Merrill #3 of the San Diego Padres rounds the bases after a home run against the Houston Astros during the third inning at Petco Park on Saturday, Aug. 8, 2026 in San Diego, California. (Meg McLaughlin \/ The San Diego Union-Tribune)<\/p>\n
Merrill\u2019s third-inning homer off right-hander Peter Lambert (5 IP, 3 R, 2 ER) traveled 421 feet on a 107 mph line to center to give the Padres a 2-1 lead.<\/p>\n
It was Merrill\u2019s seventh homer in 22 games since the All-Star break (.333\/.352\/.632) after hitting .219\/.278\/.350 over his first 93 games.<\/p>\n
\u201cJust being on time, being aggressive,\u201d Merrill said. \u201cTrying to win an at-bat each time I go up there, not think about anything but getting a good pitch to hit.\u201d<\/p>\n
Merrill\u2019s first RBI of the afternoon counted as a fielder\u2019s choice as all three runners on base had to hold up to make sure right fielder Cam Smith wouldn\u2019t come up with the catch on the shallow fly ball.<\/p>\n
Fernando Tatis Jr. easily scored from third when the ball fell in, but Ty France was thrown out before he could reach second base, taking a hit away from Merrill.<\/p>\n
The Padres\u2019 third run crossed the plate when Gavin Sheets reached on a swinging bunt in the fourth inning, moved to third on a pair of groundouts and scored when shortstop Jeremy Pe\u00f1a booted a routine grounder from Tatis.<\/p>\n
On Friday, three runs were not enough.<\/p>\n
On Saturday, with King and the bullpen clicking, they were just enough to even the series against the Astros.<\/p>\n
\u201cI was actually talking about that this morning with somebody,\u201d Merrill said. \u201cIt\u2019s like we never hit when Mike pitches, but pitched his (butt) off today, and we got enough to do the job.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"The Padres expect their trade deadline acquisitions to eventually stabilize the rotation. The pitching staff looks even better…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":401720,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[7],"tags":[56,58,57,3607,7677,23603,154,37262],"class_list":["post-401719","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-houston","tag-houston","tag-houston-headlines","tag-houston-news","tag-latest-headlines","tag-mlb","tag-san-diego-padres","tag-sports","tag-top-stories-sdut"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/401719","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=401719"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/401719\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/401720"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=401719"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=401719"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=401719"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}