The San Diego Padres closed out the first half of their “high-cost, low-efficiency” series against the New York Mets with a 2-1 win.
In the game that concluded the first half on Tuesday, the Padres won 6-2 behind a multi-homer game from Manny Machado and a strong outing from starter Joe Musgrove to finish the first half with a 43-47 record.
After missing the previous day due to soreness from kicking a bucket of water in the first game of the series, Ha Sung Kim returned to the top of the order and finished the first half with a multi-hit game. He went 2-for-4 with a double, one run scored and one strikeout. He is batting .258 with an OPS of .760.
The Mets-Padres series is a matchup of the first and third highest MLB team payrolls. The results have been inversely proportional to the payroll, with both teams struggling to win in the top four. The Mets won Game 1 of the series 7-5 in 10 innings, while the Padres won Game 2 3-1 the day before in a rubber match to set up the deciding game.온라인바카
The Mets started Max Scherzer, MLB’s highest-paid pitcher ($43.33 million). In the first inning, leadoff hitter Ha-Sung Kim led off with a single to left on a changeup from Scherzer. One out later, Fernando Tatis Jr. doubled up the middle to put runners on second and third. Machado crushed Scherzer’s slider for a three-run homer to left field (No. 14). Kim stole a base for the third straight game, but was passive, perhaps conscious of his overthrow error in Game 1.
In the bottom of the fifth inning with a 3-0 lead, Machado lined a four-seam fastball from Scherzer over the opposite field for a two-run homer (No. 15) that virtually sealed the win. It was Machado’s 36th career multi-hit game.
After Musgrove’s changeup faltered and he allowed four hard-hit balls and a bases-loaded walk in the fourth inning, the Padres showed off their crisis-management skills to get out of the inning unscathed, most notably inducing four double plays – 6-4-3 (twice), 5-4-3 and 3-6-1 – to shut down the Mets offence. Musgrove finished the first half of the season with an 8-2 record and 3.29 ERA after allowing three runs on six hits with seven strikeouts.
Scherzer, who took the loss (8-3) with five runs in five innings, has allowed a whopping 18 home runs in 87.2 innings. The Mets finished with a 42-48 record and headed back to New York.