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.
The Padres scored twice in the first inning. Ha-Seong Kim led off with a walk and moved to third on Fernando Tatis Jr.’s double. Soto hit a sacrifice fly and Xander Bogaerts followed with a single that drove in Tatis.
Mason 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 fourth 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, leading to two San Diego runs.
Noda 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 Carlos Perez to hit a double-play grounder 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
