Padres hold off Mariners to even series

Published 9:30 am Wednesday, August 27, 2025

SEATTLE — The Padres scored a first-round knockdown. Then the Mariners had them reeling.

Two teams battling for playoff positioning in their respective leagues ended up going the distance Tuesday night.

The Padres punched back after being staggered and held on to beat the Mariners for the first time in five games this season.

“That was a heavyweight battle right there,” Padres manager Mike Shildt said. “Two really good teams going at each other, playing just good, hard baseball.”

There was a little bit of everything in the Padres’ 7-6 victory. A little too much of some of it.

The Padres followed a five-run first inning, in which Ramón Laureano hit a grand slam, by getting two hits over the next four innings. The Mariners went ahead with a pair of three-run homers in the fifth. The Padres responded with a pair of runs in the sixth on a pair of doubles, a single and a sacrifice bunt.

“We get punched in the mouth there in the bottom of the fifth and come right back,” said Jake Cronenworth, whose RBI single in the sixth tied the game before Freddy Fermin brought the winning run home with a sacrifice bunt. “… That’s who we are.”

The Padres then leaned on the back end of their bullpen to do what it has done far more often than not in closing out a close game.

It had to be that way because starting pitcher Dylan Cease did what he has done far more often than not in 2025 — looking good until he did not.

And it was once again the fifth inning when he looked his worst.

Cease made it through three innings without allowing a baserunner for the first time this season, escaped a long and perilous fourth inning without allowing a run and then allowed four runs and recorded just one out in the fifth inning.

A groundout at the start of that inning was followed by a single by No. 8 hitter J.P. Crawford, a walk by Cole Young and Randy Arozarena’s home run to the bleachers in the second deck above right field.

A walk to Cal Raleigh ended Cease’s night, and when Jason Adam yielded a single to Julio Rodríguez and then a home run by Eugenio Suárez, Cease’s fifth-inning ERA had swelled to 10.62 for the season.

The lost five-run advantage was tied for the biggest blown lead of the season for the Padres. The first two happened in a span of seven games — May 28 against the Marlins and June 4 against the Giants.

They lost both those games.

The Padres won Tuesday (against the team that holds the American League’s final wild-card spot) because they scratched across two runs in the sixth inning.

Gavin Sheets led off the sixth with a double, moved to third on Laureano’s double and scored on Cronenworth’s single. Laureano scored the go-ahead run on a safety squeeze bunt by Fermín.

“Continue to battle, continue to take good at-bats, have a plan … and not try to be a hero,” Laureano said of the Padres’ ability to come back Tuesday.

“We just keep playing,” Ryan O’Hearn said. “… We have great at-bats up and down the lineup. Guys are good situational hitters. Knock on wood. And I think when you put all that together, it makes us a really hard team to beat.”

The deepest bullpen in the major leagues helps too.

Rodríguez’s two-out single in the fourth inning was the end of Cease’s perfection and the beginning of another rough outing. And Josh Naylor grounding the next pitch into center field for another single and Suárez drawing a walk to load the bases began thoughts of how often Cease has had innings get away from him this season.

But as Morejón started stretching in the bullpen, Cease ended the inning by getting a groundout from Jorge Polanco.

Then came the Mariners’ fifth inning, which was even more explosive than the Padres’ first.