Padres lose big lead, hold onto small one to even series with Mariners

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

Two teams battling for playoff postioning 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.

Adrian Morejón struck out the three batters he faced in the sixth. Mason Miller struck out the first two batters in the seventh before a walk and a single and then finally ended the inning on a fielder’s choice. Jeremiah Estrada worked around a one-out single in the eighth. Robert Suarez finished off the game for his National League-leading 35th save.

The victory kept the Padres one game behind the Dodgers, who also won Tuesday, in the Nationa League West. The Padres, who sit in the fifth of six NL playoff spots, moved to within 1½ games of the fourth-seeded Cubs, who lost.

Erasing the deficit could do nothing to alter the reality that Cease once again could not be excellent for long.

He has now allowed 13 runs over 12⅔ innings in his past three starts and has a 4.82 ERA in 27 starts this season.

At the start Tuesday, Cease had his most extended time looking like the pitcher he was in 2024 and that the Padres expected him to be again.

He looked good enough that it would have been a surprise the night imploded on him if not for the fact that so many have.

Tuesday was the 17th start this season in which he has allowed multiple runs in at least one inning.

“I wish we had the answer to it,” Shildt said. “Because he is just cruising, cruising, cruising …

And then …

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.

Fernando Tatis Jr. had begun the game by lining the third pitch from Castillo at 112 mph off the wall in center field for a double.

Two quick outs followed before O’Hearn walked. Then, Castillo got within a strike of escaping unscathed.

That is when Xander Bogaerts turned on an 0-2 sinker in and off the plate and lined it softly into left field for the Padres’ first hit in 28 at-bats with runners in scoring position against the Mariners this season and the first RBI of the game.

Laureano’s four RBIs came after Sheets walked to load the bases.

His high fly ball to the Mariners’ bullpen beyond left field was Laureano’s sixth home run with the Padres and his first grand slam since 2019.

And it was just the beginning of a wild night.

“That’s what this is about, figuring it out,” Shildt said. “I’m just really pleased with how they competed. I mean, they’re all big wins at any point in the year. They’re getting more magnified at this point in the year. But that was a game that was nice to be able to figure out a way to bring it home.”