BALTIMORE — The Padres’ last loss was to the team with the American League’s best record going into that game.
A week later, on Friday night, they extended their winning streak to a season-high six games by beating one of the teams with the American League’s best record going into the game.
“We’re dialed,” Jackson Merrill said. “You see a lot of teams hot right now, and we’re doing pretty good.”
A pair of two-run homers by Jurickson Profar, the second with two outs in the ninth inning off Orioles closer Craig Kimbrel, powered the comeback to a 6-4 victory that was rife with drama and concluded with closer Robert Suarez getting his fifth out of the night.
“A lot of heroes,” said Padres manager Mike Shildt, who used seven pitchers to chase down the victory. “Just a lot of heroes in that game.”
The Padres are 6-1 on their longest road trip of the season, which began July 19 with a 7-0 loss in Cleveland. (Entering Friday, the Guardians and Orioles were both 61-41. The Guardians won in Philadelphia.)
The Padres arrived in Baltimore having outscored the Guardians and Nationals 28-3 over the previous five games and fresh off Dylan Cease’s no-hitter on Thursday in Washington.
“We’re just playing good baseball,” Manny Machado said. “Everything is clicking. It’s ‘go’ time. We’re doing everything to win games. It’s about today. We’ll worry about tomorrow tomorrow.”
The Padres went down by two early, took a two-run lead in the middle and then had that advantage leak away in the eighth.
The Orioles scored once against fill-in starting pitcher Adam Mazur, who went 2 ⅔ innings essentially by design, and once against Austin Davis to take a 2-0 lead.
Profar’s first home run, which followed a lead-off single by Luis Arraez in the sixth inning, tied the game. The Padres scored twice more in the sixth thanks in large part to a throwing error by Orioles shortstop Gunnar Henderson that allowed Manny Machado to reach base and an RBI double by Xander Bogaerts that went in and out of left fielder Heston Kjerstad’s glove. Merrill, who grew up a half-hour from Camden Yards, drove in the fourth run with a double.
Four relievers followed Davis to get the Padres to the eighth inning with the 4-2 lead.
The fourth of those relievers was Adrián Morejón, who had stranded two inherited runners by getting the final out of the seventh.
But Anthony Santander greeted him with a home run to start the eighth, and Ryan O’Hearn followed with a double.
Morejón got a strikeout before Heston Kjerstad bounced a ball high off the dirt in front of first base for an infield single. That moved O’Hearn to third and brought Shildt from the dugout and Suarez from the bullpen.
Suarez promptly yielded a sacrifice fly to Ryan Mountcastle that made it 4-4 before striking out pinch-hitter Cedric Mullins to end the eighth.
Luis Campusano lined a one-out single to left field and was replaced at first base by pinch runner Tyler Wade, who advanced to second on a groundout by Luis Arraez and from there watched Profar’s 431-foot blast sail over his head and beyond the center field wall.
“Obviously, they have a great team over there too,” Profar said. “I was just telling myself we need this win (with) the way we fought back early. I was lucky to help us right there.”
Suarez proceeded to retire all three batters he faced in the ninth for the victory.
“The important thing was we got the win,” Suarez said. “All of us contributed.”
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