SAN DIEGO — The San Diego Padres are looking forward to the All-Star break.
More than usual. March 30 just feels like so long ago, and they know the energy that will be required to dig out of the hole they are in.
“I think it’ll be physically a reset, a cool down,” Jake Cronenworth said Saturday afternoon. “And mentally, to get away from the game, enjoy your family or wherever you’re going. Then come back … and there are (72) games to go, and it’s go time.”
The Padres also felt like it would be a good idea before that to finish strong in what is traditionally known as the season’s first half.
They took a step toward doing so Saturday.
Blake Snell and three relievers made a three-run second inning, which featured Matthew Batten’s first major league home run, stand up for a 3-1 victory over the Mets at Petco Park.
There is nothing the Padres can do about the past three months of more downs than ups and more wrong than right. They can’t make reliever Robert Suarez’s rehabilitation from an elbow issue go faster and have to wait for Steven Wilson’s time on the injured list with a pectoral strain to be up. They can’t add a run anywhere to alter their MLB-worst 0-8 record in extra innings or MLB-worst 5-15 record in one-run games.
What they knew they could do was win their final two games going into the All-Star break and finish this homestand with a 5-1 record and have the final memories of a tough first three-plus months be positive ones.
“And then once we get into the second half, we’ll talk about how important it is to get off to a good start and so forth,” manager Bob Melvin said Saturday afternoon. “But you’d like — especially after the series against the Angels — to be able to go home on a good note with a good feeling and let that marinate a little bit.”
Snell struck out seven of the first eight batters he faced and finished with 11 strikeouts in six innings.
Snell, who has posted a 0.68 ERA and struck out 84 batters over his previous nine starts (53 innings), walked No. 9 hitter Mark Canha to end a stretch of eight straight batters retired at the start of the game.
When he struck out Starling Marte for the second out of the fifth inning, Snell reached double-digit strikeouts for the fifth time in his past six starts.
The Mets immediately took advantage of Snell being out when Francisco Alvarez led off the seventh inning by smacking a slider in the heart of the strike zone from Luis García to the seats beyond left field.
García retired the next three batters.
Nick Martinez struck out the side in the eighth, and Josh Hader closed out his 21st save.
It was a somewhat rare bit of symmetry for the Padres, who have had trouble lining up their hitting and pitching in a way that produces victories.
On this night, the solid pitching made one big inning enough.
Gary Sánchez led off the second inning with a double down the left field line, moved to third on Jake Cronenworth’s infield single and scored on a bloop to right field by Brandon Dixon that fell in front of Marte. The Mets’ right fielder picked up the ball and threw to second base to force Cronenworth, who had held up to see if the ball would be caught.
Batten, who started in place of Ha-Seong Kim, followed by sending a 1-2 changeup from Mets left-hander David Peterson over the wall in left field.
Kim, whose .321 average since June 15 leads the team, had kicked a water cooler in frustration after being thrown out trying to stretch a double into a triple on Friday.
“He feels better than he did last night,” manager Bob Melvin said Saturday afternoon. “... He was having a little trouble walking around.”
Batten, who was called up Monday when Nelson Cruz was designated for assignment, went 2-for-19 in 15 games for the Padres in 2022 and was hitting .241 with a .763 OPS in Triple-A this season.
The Padres improved to 42-47, 61/2 games out of the National League’s final wild-card spot.
The Mets (42-47) had won five straight.
“It’s a team that’s playing really well right now,” Melvin said. “It’s a team that has gone through what we’ve gone through this year, and they’re playing a little bit better right now.”
