SAN DIEGO (AP) \u2014 Fernando Tatis Jr. hit a go-ahead, three-run homer and pinch-hitter Austin Hays connected for a two-run shot in his first at-bat with San Diego as the Padres beat the AL West-leading Houston Astros 7-2 on Sunday.<\/p>\n
Jackson Merrill and Gavin Sheets also went deep for the Padres, who took two of three in the series and remained one game out of a National League playoff spot.<\/p>\n
Randy V\u00e1squez and three relievers combined on a two-hitter to help the Padres to their 12th victory in 16 games.<\/p>\n
V\u00e1squez (8-6) pitched five solid innings, retiring his final 10 batters after allowing Daulton Varsho’s two-run homer with two outs in the second. It was Varsho’s eighth home run this season and first since being acquired from Toronto before the trade deadline last Monday.<\/p>\n
The Padres began their comeback in the bottom of the inning when Merrill homered to straightaway center field off Cristian Javier (1-3). It was Merrill’s 18th.<\/p>\n
Tatis hit a 421-foot drive to the third level of the Western Metal Supply Co. brick warehouse in the left-field corner with two outs in the fourth to give San Diego a 4-2 lead. It was his 11th.<\/p>\n
Sheets greeted reliever AJ Blubaugh with a leadoff shot to right in the sixth. It was his 15th.<\/p>\n
Hays, signed earlier in the day, batted for Sheets in the eighth and homered to left off Bryan King. It was his second.<\/p>\n
V\u00e1squez held the Astros to two hits with one strikeout and no walks.<\/p>\n
Astros: RHP Hayden Wesneski (2-0, 2.84 ERA) is scheduled to start Monday night’s series opener at San Francisco, which will counter with RHP Blade Tidwell (0-0, 3.18).<\/p>\n
Padres: RHP Casey Mize (4-7, 3.40 ERA) makes his first home start since being acquired from Detroit last Monday when he opposes Milwaukee RHP Logan Henderson (6-1, 2.70).<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"SAN DIEGO (AP) \u2014 Fernando Tatis Jr. hit a go-ahead, three-run homer and pinch-hitter Austin Hays connected for…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":402363,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[8],"tags":[141030,141014,130749,128322,48644,116166,122900,122556,91667,122554,23681,202,196,42094,197,942,63184,82,84,83,43571],"class_list":["post-402362","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-san-antonio","tag-astros-padres-score-tatis-hays","tag-austin-hays","tag-bryan-king","tag-casey-mize","tag-cristian-javier","tag-daulton-varsho","tag-fernando-tatis-jr","tag-gavin-sheets","tag-hayden-wesneski","tag-jackson-merrill","tag-package-100024-ap-online","tag-package-100502-member-choice-sports-option","tag-product-30599-ap-sports-news-s-wire-only","tag-product-32562-ap-online-other-sports-news","tag-product-40776-ap-california-sports-only","tag-product-40815-ap-texas-sports-only","tag-randy-vasquez","tag-san-antonio","tag-san-antonio-headlines","tag-san-antonio-news","tag-san-diego"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/402362","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=402362"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/402362\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/402363"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=402362"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=402362"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=402362"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}