Geraldo Perdomo hit a grand slam Wednesday night and Brandon Pfaadt sailed through the longest start of his career as the visiting Arizona Diamondbacks cruised to an 8-2 win over the San Diego Padres.
Pfaadt (9-6) looked nothing like a pitcher who entered the night with a 5.42 earned run average, going eight innings while allowing two runs on four hits. Pfaadt walked none and fanned four, slipping a called third strike past Fernando Tatis Jr. with his 99th and final pitch of the game.
Perdomo blew open a 2-0 game in the top of the fifth, lining his 10th homer of the year and Arizona’s MLB-high ninth slam of the season into the right field seats. It was the longest of four homers for Arizona.
Dylan Cease (3-9) suffered his third straight loss, bitten by three long balls and three walks. Cease worked six innings and permitted five runs off six hits while striking out eight. Two of those free passes scored on Perdomo’s slam.
Cease retired the first seven batters he faced before James McCann lashed a third-inning fastball an estimated 434 feet into the second deck in left for his second homer of the season. An inning later, Eugenio Suarez jumped on a hanging slider and lifted it just over the glove of Bryce Johnson into the left field seats for his 29th homer.
Tatis led off the first with a double into the left field corner, but Pfaadt mowed down the next 13 hitters before San Diego got a run in the fifth. Xander Bogaerts singled, Jake Cronenworth doubled and Johnson cashed in Bogaerts with a groundout to first.
Gavin Sheets led off the seventh with his 14th homer, a 437-foot rocket into the right field seats, to bring the Padres within 6-2.
Corbin Carroll, who fanned in his first four at-bats, capped the Diamondbacks’ scoring in the ninth with a leadoff homer to right, his 21st of the season. Six of Arizona’s eight hits went for extra bases.
–Field Level Media
