The San Diego Padres have taken the field looking to sweep a series five times this season. They are 0-5 in those games.
They will hope the sixth time is a charm on Wednesday when they host the Oakland Athletics in an afternoon game.
After failing to break out the brooms against Milwaukee, Arizona, Atlanta, Miami and Kansas City this season, the Padres are getting another shot thanks to Kyle Higashioka. The catcher hit a leadoff homer in the bottom of the ninth on Tuesday, lifting San Diego to a 4-3 win in front of 41,945 fans.
“Feels good to come through for the team for once,” Higashioka said. “We had the lead late and giving it up is a little bit of a letdown. I was glad we could win it without going extra innings. The team has shown a lot of resilience.”
On that count, Higashioka is correct. The Padres have won 14 games after trailing, including the first two of this series. Last year’s underachieving team wasn’t known for its dramatic rallies late in games.
There was one troubling note for the Padres, though: an eighth-inning injury to left fielder Jurickson Profar. He left the game after his left knee buckled as he swung and missed at a pitch. Manager Mike Shildt said the knee was sore but didn’t provide an update as to Profar’s status for the Wednesday game.
Right-hander Michael King (5-4, 3.58 ERA) will make the start for San Diego. He is coming off a 10-3 win Friday night against the Diamondbacks that saw him work five shutout innings, allowing four hits and a walk while fanning five.
King will be making his first career start against Oakland. He worked 1 1/3 scoreless innings of relief against the A’s while a member of the New York Yankees in 2022.
The Athletics will counter with left-hander Hogan Harris (0-0, 2.21 ERA). His last outing came Friday night, when he fired six scoreless innings against the Toronto Blue Jays in a game Oakland won 2-1 in the bottom of the ninth on a walk-off homer by JJ Bleday.
Harris allowed just three hits, walked two and fanned three in a 91-pitch outing. He will be facing the Padres for the first time in his career. In his third stint with the A’s this year, Harris has permitted one earned run in 11 2/3 innings over his past two starts.
“My fastball has been playing pretty well,” he said. “I just realized, if I get behind in the count, just attack them with the heater and see what happens. Instead of just trying to dot everything, sometimes you just have to go after them.
“Even the hard-hit balls, it’s still hard to get a hit because there’s eight (defenders) out there.”
If Oakland hitters feel like that number has multiplied against them with runners on base, there’s a good reason. In the past nine games, the A’s are 4-for-52 with runners in scoring position after going 1-for-8 on Tuesday.
The A’s have been held under four runs in eight of their past nine games, going 2-7, and they have dropped four straight.
–Field Level Media
