The first thing to know about Sunday’s ballgame in the East Village is that San Diego loves baseball like few other cities do.
The Pirates have the National League’s worst record in the three decades since Barry Bonds left them, but did the unglamorous opponent induce Padres fans to spend the afternoon at the beach?
Of course not.
Another capacity crowd, announced at 42,069, showed up and cheered a 6-4 comeback victory that decided the three-game series.
The Pirates play before home crowds that average about 17,000 fans. They understand why their crowds are so small, but appreciated that so many folks were paying attention Sunday.
“This place has become one of the best environments in the big leagues when you talk about the energy and the atmosphere,” said manager Don Kelly, who played for the Tigers, Pirates and Marlins as an outfielder and first baseman.
Padres trail only Dodgers crowds with an average size of 42,000, while the forever-rebuilding Pirates stand 26th in attendance despite also boasting one of MLB’s more attractive ballparks.
The Marlins loved the big crowds here, too, in their visit this past week. Their home games attract 12,000 fans on average, further penalizing MLB’s short-sighted decision to plant a team in Miami.
The second thing to know about Sunday’s game is that, while the baseball wasn’t World Series-caliber, it served up good stuff.
What are the odds of a hitter with each team bringing to mind his franchise’s most famous and ired Hall of Famer?
It happened Sunday.
Padres No. 2 hitter Luis Arraez recalled Tony Gwynn with a one-run single that tied the score 4-4 in the seventh inning.
Yes, I wrote last year that it’s not a great idea to compare Arraez to Gwynn, either as a player or as a hitter.
An exception was warranted when Arraez redirected a high, inside fastball past the shortstop — a “5.5” special — off a 1-2 pitch clocked at 95 mph.
The Pirates weren’t outdone in the icon category, thanks to their No. 2 hitter.
When Andrew McCutchen drove Randy Vásquez’s curveball into the left-field seats in the third inning, he matched Roberto Clemente for third on Pittsburgh’s career home run list with 240.
As you’d guess, a Padres fan gathered the historic home run.
And when 13-year-old Tavin Kading chose to give McCutchen the baseball after the game, he turned McCutcheon into a fan.
“Great to meet people like that — he’s down to earth,” said McCutchen, who gave Kading a bat and a ball.
The ballplayer also said the boy’s kind action showed that “there are great people in the world, not everyone’s greedy.”
If you like “inside baseball” quirks, Sunday’s contest delivered those, too.
My favorite was Jackson Merrill’s freakish RBI double.
The pitch was a tailing sinker that was two or three inches inside of the inside corner. A second surprise came when Pirates lefty starter Andrew Heaney (5 2/3 innings, two runs) said the 0-0 pitch went where he aimed.
Heaney said he “went to the well one time too many” with that pitch, praising Merrill for whacking it. The double came with two outs, and pulled the Padres to 4-2 in the sixth.
Merrill was involved in another key instructive play.
Fielding a two-out single in center field that would score a runner from second base, Merrill threw a perfect strike over second base.
Manny Machado cut it off and trapped Ke’Bryan Hayes with a throw to first base for the third out.
On purpose, Hayes rounded far past first base, Kelly confirmed. The Pirates involved in the play, said the manager, “weren’t really sure how close it was going to be at home plate and wanted to make sure we got that run across; so make (Machado) cut it to make sure we score the run there,” Kelly said.
The thinking made sense; the judgment did not.
The main engine to a comeback that left the Padres 4-2 on the homestand was a poor day by generic middle reliever Tanner Rainey.
The righty helped the 2019 Nationals win the franchise’s only World Series title. Sunday, his control was way off.
There’s an art to allowing a less-talented opponent to lose the game. The Padres got that part right Sunday. They collected walks, and got a scorched, pinch-hit single off Rainey from Elías Díaz.
That’s how it went for much of the homestand. The Marlins hit the ball harder than the Padres in all three games, but the Padres swiped two victories. The Pirates had good chances to win all three games. The Padres, showing more precision and poise, took two of them.
On a day when Diamondbacks ace Corbin Burnes exited with an elbow injury that will require an MRI, just five months after Arizona guaranteed him $210 million, the Padres’ problems didn’t disappear but nor did they grow.
The bottom line, going into a tougher stretch of schedule, is that manager Mike Shildt’s team is 33-24 and has given itself a realistic shot at bagging the franchise’s fourth wild card in six years.
