Dylan Cease allowed only one hit and struck out 11 over six shutout innings Saturday as the San Diego Padres snapped a five-game losing streak with a 4-0 win over the visiting Atlanta Braves.
Cease (8-8) walked three and struck out 11, the fourth time this year he has given up just one hit in a start of at least six innings. Cease threw 69 of his 106 pitches for strikes and closed out his outing in style, striking out the side swinging in the sixth.
Reynaldo Lopez (7-3) took the loss after yielding 11 hits and three runs in six innings with no walks and two strikeouts. Lopez permitted a hit in every inning but was kept his team thanks to three double plays.
However, San Diego nicked him for three RBI hits with two outs. David Peralta got him for the first one in the second, a pitch after Donovan Solano swiped second. Peralta slashed a ground-rule double into the left field corner for the only run the Padres needed.
Luis Arraez made it 2-0 in the fifth when he followed Tyler Wade’s infield hit and steal of second by lining a run-scoring double down the right field line for the last of his three hits.
In the sixth, Peralta delivered the last of his three hits, looping an RBI single to right-center that scored Manny Machado from third. Machado capped the scoring in the eighth with his 13th homer of the year, taking Jesse Chavez’s sinker an estimated 403 feet to center, and third hit of the day.
Atlanta’s best scoring chance against Cease came in the fourth when Matt Olson and Marcell Ozuna walked with one out. After a pop out, they moved up a base on a wild pitch, but Cease got Eddie Rosario to chase a 2-2 slider under the strike zone for an inning-ending whiff.
Ozuna, whose infield single to lead off the second was the only hit off Cease, had two of the Braves’ five hits.
–Field Level Media
