SEATTLE — In Saturday’s 7-4 victory over the Mariners, some of the Padres continued what the team started a day earlier.
Gavin Sheets and Nick Castellanos — two of the Padres hottest hitters, meaning two of their three hot hitters — hit home runs. So did the team’s temporary No. 2 catcher, Rodolfo Durán.
That was enough for Walker Buehler and five relievers to lock down the series-clinching victory that got the Padres to nine games above .500 for the first time in 2½ weeks.
It was absolutely necessary that the Padres’ depth players went deep, because the players expected to lift them continued to lilt.
“The big boys can’t carry us the whole season, and so when the other guys kind of pitch in and do their part and carry the load while those guys are figuring their swings out, that’s what makes a great team,” manager Craig Stammen said. “It’s not about just three or four people, it’s about the entire team, and these guys have bought into that.”
Manny Machado walked at the start of the fourth and scored one of the Padres’ four runs in the inning.
That was the first time in four games that Machado, Fernando Tatis Jr. or Jackson Merrill scored or drove in a run.
Those were on Saturday (and generally are) the Padres’ first three batters.
Tatis also walked, but the trio at the top was hitless in 10 at-bats Saturday, are batting .113 with three runs and three RBIs over the past 10 games and have a collective .597 OPS this season.
“First off, I think that those guys are gonna hit,” Sheets said. “I think you’re gonna look up at the end of the year and their numbers are gonna be their numbers. But I also think that we’ve got a lot of pieces in this room. I think it’s a really well-constructed roster. And that’s what good teams do. They find ways to win, pick each other up.”
The Padres are 27-18 because of repeated contributions by Saturday’s heroes and supplemental players like them.
Sheets continued a torrid stretch Saturday by starting the scoring with a home run in the second inning. Now 10-for-28 with three homers and seven walks over his past 10 games, Sheets is tied with Xander Bogaerts with a team-leading seven home runs.
The Padres’ lead jumped to 5-0 in the fourth inning, when they loaded the bases on two walks and a single, got one run on Miguel Andujar’s fielder’s choice grounder and then a three-run homer by Castellanos.
The 401-foot blast was Castellanos’ third home run and 10th hit in a span of 35 at-bats since April 29. He was homerless and batting .143 in 42 at-bats before that.
It was the Padres’ first four-run inning in 10 games. They didn’t even score four runs in six of their previous nine games.
But in Tuesday’s 2-0 victory, they tied a season high with 12 line drives and hit more balls off the bat at 100 mph or greater (10) than they had in any game over the previous month.
That was hours after an admonishment from hitting coach Steven Souza Jr. about most of them having drifted from the approach that had worked for them most of April.
And the big fourth inning was not the end of the offense Saturday, as Durán followed a double by Ramón Laureano with his first big-league hit, a 386-foot homer to left field off Mariners starter Logan Gilbert.
The Mariners clawed back a run in the fourth and scored again in the fifth against Buehler, who made it through five innings on a season-high 101 pitches. And after Wandy Peralta and Jason Adam threw scoreless innings, Alek Jacob allowed a run without getting an out in the eighth.
Adrian Morejón came in and allowed one of two inherited runners to score before ending the inning.
Jeremiah Estrada left two runners on in the ninth to close out the Padres’ third victory in five games on a trip that concludes Sunday.
“We’re finding ways to win baseball games,” Castellanos said. “We’re playing as a group. Everybody is focused on the bigger picture, which is doing whatever we can to score more runs than the other team. Starters are giving us a chance. Offense is being able to put together decent at-bats, especially if we’ve got to scratch one across. … We’re just doing little things that equate to winning baseball games.”
