Rookie Matt Waldron earned his first major league win, Juan Soto drove in two runs and the San Diego Padres made it two in a row over the host Oakland Athletics with a 5-2 interleague triumph Saturday afternoon.
Giving manager Bob Melvin his second straight win over his former team, the Padres scored twice in the first inning and never trailed en route to their third straight win.
Making his fourth big-league start, Waldron (1-3) benefitted from pitching with a lead for his entire 5 1/3 innings, during which he allowed two runs and seven hits. He walked one and struck out five.
Soto had his first RBI in the two-run first, an uprising set up by Mason Miller’s game-opening walk to Ha-Seong Kim and a Fernando Tatis Jr. double. Soto’s sacrifice fly opened the scoring, after which Xander Bogaerts singled home Tatis.
Miller (0-3) pitched just the first inning, charged with two runs on two hits. He walked three and struck out two.
The Padres (71-78) added a run in the third when Soto drew a bases-loaded walk, and capped their scoring in the fifth when Oakland first baseman Ryan Noda committed two errors on one play, allowing two San Diego runs to score.
Noda had delivered Oakland’s first run in the third with a sacrifice fly. Zack Gelof’s 12th home run of the season, a solo shot, wrapped up the day’s scoring in the sixth.
The A’s had two later promising opportunities to get closer, but Scott Barlow induced a double play grounder off the bat of Carlos Perez with two on and one out in the sixth. An inning later, Robert Suarez got Gelof on a comebacker as the potential tying run.
Josh Hader capped 3 2/3 innings of shutout relief by the San Diego bullpen with a one-hit ninth for his 29th save.
Bogaerts had two hits for the Padres, who won despite getting outhit 9-6.
Tony Kemp and Lawrence Butler collected two singles apiece for the A’s (46-102), who lost their third straight.
–Field Level Media
