Padres play small ball, get grand slam from Manny Machado to beat Mets

NEW YORK — The Padres are who they are on offense.

They know they are at their best when they accept that and commit to scratching and clawing and taking what the game gives them.

But they also believe they are capable of being more.

They were both what they are and more on Wednesday.

Small ball got them two early leads and then Manny Machado put them up for good with a grand slam en route to a 7-4 victory over the Mets.

“That’s our best baseball whenever we play that way,” Machado said.

And if not just in time, it was about time.

They entered the game having won just six times in their previous 15 games, and they had talked a lot recently about not consistently doing all the things that had gotten them to this point before they had stalled on the precipice of a playoff berth.

“Everybody is watching,” Fernando Tatis Jr. said before the game. “You can see where we need improvement, where we need to make adjustments real quick. We are a good team. We just need to execute.”

They went out Wednesday and did so expertly — at least early.

It was all bunts and singles and walks and sacrifice flies as they took a 1-0 in the first inning and a 2-1 lead in the second.

The Mets tied the game 1-1 on a Pete Alonso homer in the first inning and 2-2 on a Starling Marte home run in the fourth.

Machado broke the 2-2 tie with his 14th career grand slam, most among active players, off Mets starter David Peterson in the fifth inning.

The victory meant the Padres would end the night no worse than two games behind the Dodgers in the National League West, and it kept alive the possibility they could clinch a playoff berth by Saturday.

“Every game from now on is a big one,” Machado said

The Padres sit in the fifth of six NL playoff spots, five games ahead of the Mets and 6½ games clear of the Diamondbacks with 10 games remaining.

The Padres rank second-to-last in the major leagues in home runs and have generally had to rely on stringing together base hits and bases on balls to score this season.

However, their slug has ticked up recently. And they needed almost every bit of the lead Machado’s blast gave them.

The cushion helped them weather a rare short outing by Nick Pivetta, who allowed three home runs for the first time this season and did not make it through five innings for the first time since June.

With the Padres needing a win arguably as badly as they have all season, Padres manager Mike Shildt did not wait around for the pitcher who has been his ace to wiggle out of a jam in the fifth. After an Alonso single followed a Juan Soto homer that made it 6-3, Shildt went to Adrián Morejón, who worked through the sixth inning.

“Sitting there and you’re going, ‘OK, let Nicky finish (the fifth) and try to get him a win,’” Shildt said. “Well, right now, it’s about team wins and … the bullpen was rested to do it, which is what you would expect to have happen. … The opportunity today was there. We had a day off two days ago. The guys that pitched in the game today didn’t even get up yesterday. And so it was an opportunity. We had some fresh guys and had the lanes. We went for it, and they did their part.”

Machado’s blast also provided enough leeway to survive when the Padres stopped executing so well.

The Padres left a run on the field in the sixth inning when Elías Díaz slowed down heading home and did not cross the plate before Luis Arraez was thrown out at second base trying to turn what would have been an RBI single into a double.

And they did not score in the seventh inning after getting two runners on with no outs.

That helped make for some tense moments.

Jeremiah Estrada relieved Morejón and surrendered a leadoff home run to Francisco Alvarez and walked Cedric Mullins.

Estrada got Francisco Lindor to pop out, and Shildt went to Mason Miller, who struck out Soto and Alonso.

Soto missed tying the game against Miller by inches when he sent a ball to left field that tailed just foul as it passed the pole.

“Scary one for sure,” Miller said. “…  I saw it to the left, I thought it was a little, small gap. Obviously not a big one.”

It was close enough that it was reviewed by video. And Miller struck out Soto on the next pitch before getting Alonso on four pitches.

Ramón Laureano’s solo homer in the ninth inning provided a three-run advantage for closer Robert Suarez to work with in the ninth. Suarez moved into a tie for the MLB lead with his 39th save, ending the game by getting Soto out on a comebacker to the mound with two runners on.

“Just a really well-played game in all phases, honestly,” Shildt said. “Both sides of the ball, both clubs.”