SAN DIEGO, CA - JUNE 15: David Fry #12 of the Cleveland Guardians, right, is congratulated by Josh Naylor #22 after hitting a three-run home run during the first inning of a baseball game against the San Diego PadresJune 15, 2023 at Petco Park in San Diego, California. (Photo by Denis Poroy/Getty Images)Photo: Getty Images/Denis Poroy
SAN DIEGO, CA--- The Guardians avoided a series sweep defeating the Padres Thursday night 8-6, propelled by a 5 run 1st inning. Those runs came from Josh Naylor extending his hitting streak to 14 with a 2 run RBI single, surpassing the 50 RBI mark, and a David Fry 3 run home run that exited the park at 105.5 MPH. The Guardians had 3 hits with exit velocities exceeding 104 MPH in the first inning.
Leave it to Manny Machado to bring the Padres back in it, he would hit a historic 3 run home run in the bottom half of the first after Logan T Allen would walk the first 2 batters he faced. Machado now has the most home runs in Petco Park by a Padre with 65. The Padres loved to get going early in this series, tallying 8 first inning hits over the 3 game series. Jose Ramirez would extend the lead roping a RBI double on a 3-1 fastball, driving in Myles Straw. In a very familiar situation, it was Machado up with a chance to do some serious damage with the bases loaded, but Logan T Allen would get a huge strikeout on Machado to end the inning. In the 3rd, the Padres would get 2 runs on a grounder to Josh Bell, Bell would make a great diving play to get Brandon Dixon out at first, but Xander Bogarts scored form 3rd on the ground ball, and with a very aggressive play on the bases Ha-Seong Kim didn't stop running from 2nd and would score as well. The runs would continue with a Jose Ramirez RBI single and a Trent Grisham double off the right field wall in the 4th and 5th innings. The offense surprisingly stalled until the 8th inning, where again David Fry would hit a double off the wall that was almost a robbed home run, but Trent Grisham dropped the ball, he was driven home with an Andres Gimenez 2 out RBI single, advancing to 2nd on the throw home. Emmanuel Clase would come in the game in the 8th inning and stay through the 9th to secure a 4 out save.
The Guardians will head out to the desert to start a series with the Arizona Diamondbacks, first pitch is at 9:40 and you can hear it on WTAM 1100 AM, who has been serving Northeast Ohio for 100 years.