It is difficult to overstate the importance of the 4-game series the Padres and Mets started on Thursday night at Petco Park. San Diego had a 5.5 game lead on New York, the first team on the outside of the National League Wild Card race.
A Padres series win could effectively prevent the Mets from catching them. A Mets series win would make things extremely uncomfortable for the Friar Faithful.
It did not get off to a great start for the home team. The Mets strung together 17 hits, 12 of them singles, in an 8-3 win that gave New York four straight wins over the Padres this year (they swept a 3-game series at Citi Field in June).
Dylan Cease got the start and was good enough to get a win. He went 6.1 innings and gave up three runs but just two were earned. In the 4th inning catcher Luis Campusano simply missed a fastball that was close to the strike zone. The passed ball allowed Jesse Winker to score and led to another run on an infield single.
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Bryan Hoeing handled the next 1.2 innings with no damage done but in the top of the 9th, Logan Gillaspie fell apart. The reliever just called up when starter Matt Waldron was optioned to Triple-A El Paso allowed four straight hits to start the inning and it snowballed from there. Gillaspie was touched up for five runs on seven hits, putting it out of reach even for an offense that has specialized in late-game dramatics.
One happy note is rookie shortstop Mason McCoy, making his first career big league start, drove in a run with a 9th-inning single for his first career RBI. The 29-year-old also played solid defense filling in for the injured Ha-Seong Kim.
The good news is the Padres get to come back and try to even the series on Friday night with Joe Musgrove on the mound against Mets righty Paul Blackburn.
