Matt Chapman, Jerar Encarnacion, and Luis Matos all hit home runs off Joe Musgrove during a big six-run fourth inning, and the San Francisco Giants managed to beat the San Diego Padres 7-6 on a hot, chaotic Sunday afternoon, winning two out of three games.
Curt Casili also homered for the Giants. This was their first winning record (4-3) in San Diego since 2021, and they now lead the season series 6-4 with three games remaining in San Francisco.
The Padres have lost three of their last four games but still lead the race for the top NL wild card spot.
The Giants were ahead 6-0 and 7-1, but some poor defense and a bullpen failure allowed the Padres to close the gap to 7-6.
The Padres scored three runs in the seventh inning—one from a wild pitch by Tyler Rogers and two from an error by shortstop Tyler Fitzgerald, who collided with second baseman Marco Luciano and dropped a popup by Jurickson Profar that should have been the third out.
Xander Bogaerts then hit a two-run homer in the eighth inning. Fitzgerald and Luciano had a heated exchange in the dugout before third base coach Matt Williams intervened.
Manager Bob Melvin commented, “It’s bad communication. It doesn’t matter whose fault it was. It’s unacceptable. It’s bad baseball. Our defense has to get better.”
Melvin noted that Fitzgerald, as the shortstop, “kind of has priority, but maybe went a little too far.” Both players said it was a communication issue.
Luciano explained through an interpreter, “I called it. He didn’t hear me because it was obviously loud here. I did not hear him calling.”
Fitzgerald added, “It wasn’t my ball. It’s my mistake. Hopefully going forward we’ll just scream as loud as we can.”
Fitzgerald also mentioned that the two young players “just don’t have that connection right now in the middle where we’re communicating on the same page. … I’m not blaming it on him, but I’m trying to get across the point that we have to be louder because if I don’t hear anything I’m going to run over there and try to make the play.”
Erik Miller (4-5) earned the win, and Ryan Walker picked up a five-out save, his seventh of the season.
Joe Musgrove (5-5) was doing well after getting the first 10 batters out, including six strikeouts. However, the next seven Giants batters got hits, and six of them scored.
The trouble began when Heliot Ramos’ fly ball fell just to the left of right fielder Fernando Tatis Jr., who was unable to catch it due to the sun.
Tatis, who won the 2023 NL Gold Glove and Platinum Glove awards in his first season in right field, wasn’t wearing sunglasses on the hot, bright afternoon and tried to shield his eyes with his arm. Chapman then hit a two-run homer to center field, his 23rd of the season.
“It got in the sun at the last second,” Tatis said. “Sunglasses, for me, are worse when you have the sun right on top of you because it just goes, like, way darker. … I’ve played with sunglasses and without sunglasses, and it’s definitely better without them.”
Ramos did not run hard after hitting the ball. “He got talked to about that,” Melvin said. “He said he’ll never do that again. He plays hard every single day.
A fly ball to Tatis is typically an out. We did discuss here, too, that the sun in right field early in the game in a day game can be tough. He couldn’t be more apologetic.”
Michael Conforto and Tyler Fitzgerald got singles before Encarnacion hit a homer to left field, his third. Matos then hit a homer to left field as well, his fifth, making the score 6-0.
Marco Luciano hit a double before Musgrove got Casali to foul out and struck out rookie Grant McCray for the second time in the inning.
McCray was moved up from ninth to leadoff after hitting two home runs and driving in five runs in Saturday night’s 6-3 win. On Sunday, he struck out three times, grounded out, and then struck out a fourth time.
Musgrove gave up six runs and eight hits in 4 1/3 innings, with seven strikeouts and one walk.
San Diego’s Jackson Merrill, who is competing with Pittsburgh’s Paul Skenes for the NL Rookie of the Year Award, hit a home run off rookie Spencer Biven leading off the fifth inning. It was Merrill’s 23rd homer, tying him with Jedd Gyorko for third place on the Padres’ all-time rookie home run list.
