ST. PETERSBURG, Fla. — The Padres hit three two-strike singles to the opposite field, ran the bases smartly and aggressively, got a sacrifice fly and hit another single to cobble together three runs in the top of the first inning Friday night.
It was offensive execution as if lifted from a textbook written by Mike Shildt.
Then things got a bit silly for a time and kept occasionally getting wilder inside the strange little circle of an indoor ballpark with carpeted warning track and live stingrays in a tank beyond right-center field.
A 13-5 Padres victory over the Rays at Tropicana Field opened brilliantly and then careened off the rails before (mostly) settling down.
The Padres scored in each of the first four innings and then did not score again until the ninth. The Rays made it interesting for about five minutes early and would not make it easy late. Padres starting pitcher Martín Pérez could hardly throw a strike and then threw too many and then somehow made it deep enough into the game to get the win.
In all, the Padres walked six times, were hit by a pitch and had 13 hits. The Rays walked six times and had 10 hits.
Jurickson Profar led off the game with a single lined over shortstop, stole second base and moved to third on a single through the left side by Jake Cronenworth. Manny Machado’s single over second base scored Profar and moved Cronenworth to third. On Xander Bogaerts’ sacrifice fly, Cronenworth not only ran home but Machado sped to second just in front of a throw from center fielder Johnny DeLuca, which allowed him to score when Jackson Merrill lined Rays starter Taj Bradley’s first pitch to center field.
Immediately, Pérez began a night of tortuous inaccuracy.
The left-hander, who walked the final three batters he faced in his previous start, walked two of the first three batters he faced Friday. He also got an out when the second of those batters reached on what appeared would be a double play grounder.
But Bogaerts, the Padres’ second baseman bobbled Junior Caminero’s grounder and then, in his haste, flipped the ball ostensibly to second base but really toward first. But Cronenworth ran up to scoop the ball and fired a perfect throw to third base, where Donovan Solano applied a quick tag to get Yandy Diaz, who had tried to get an extra base.
Pérez got out of the first with a strikeout and a fly ball.
A lead-off single by Luis Campusano, one-out walk by Profar and two-out single by Cronenworth added a run in the second before a home run by Machado added three more to make it 7-0.
It was not a laugher for long.
The Rays did not wait around for Pérez to miss the strike zone in the second inning, as they got on the board with three singles on his first five pitches of the inning. And after a strikeout, Yandy Diaz launched a 400-foot home run to left field that got the Rays to 7-4.
It was not that close for long.
Bradley was done after 71 pitches when he surrendered a one-out single to David Peralta and walked Campusano. Erasmo Ramírez struck out the first batter he faced but also allowed the runners to advance on a wild pitch. The Rays then intentionally walked Profar, and Solano worked a 3-2 walk to make it 8-4.
The Rays had runners on with less than two outs in each of the next two innings and the Padres had relievers warming in both, the only runs scored in that span were by the Padres — on a walk by Bogaerts and two-out homer by David Peralta that made it 10-4 in the fourth.
Perez was finished after five innings and 101 pitches.
Sean Reynolds struck out five of the first six batters he faced to get through that inning and two outs deep in the seventh with no one on.
That is when things got interesting again.
Two singles followed to put runners on the corners. Jeremiah Estrada replaced Reynolds and promptly walked a batter to load the bases before getting a pop-up to end the inning.
The Rays scored off Estrada in the eighth before Tanner Scott got the inning’s final out. And after Bogaerts’ homered and Solano drove in two runs with a bases-loaded single in the top of the ninth, Adrián Morejón finished the game.
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