Padres turn a corner with 5-run 9th-inning rally

MIAMI -- Their season now a third of the way over, the Padres have spent much of the first two months searching for a very specific winning formula. It has proven maddeningly elusive.

They needed to hit with runners in scoring position. They needed to put pressure on opposing pitchers with a lineup that, on paper, ranks among the best in baseball. When they’ve fallen behind, they needed to feel like their offense was simply too loaded to be worried about a small deficit.

In short: They need it to look a lot more like it did on Tuesday night in Miami.

In their series-opening 9-4 victory over the Marlins at loanDepot park, the Padres rallied from an early deficit to tie the game, then broke it open with a five-run ninth inning. They got contributions from everywhere.

“That’s 100 percent what we should be doing, what this offense should be doing,” said right fielder Fernando Tatis Jr. “We’re taking better at-bats as a group. Today we finally had a good result.”

The Padres had catalysts galore on Tuesday night, but the big bats did the heavy lifting. Juan Soto reached base four times, and his RBI single in the seventh tied the game. Tatis also notched an RBI single during that game-tying seventh-inning rally, and he sparked the ninth-inning breakout by drawing a walk, stealing second and advancing to third on an errant throw.

After Soto was intentionally walked behind Tatis, Xander Bogaerts promptly knocked Tatis in with his second hit of the night, an RBI single up the middle to give the Padres a late lead. The floodgates opened from there.

“[That’s] the type of inning that we’re capable of having,” said Padres manager Bob Melvin.

Soto scored on a fielder’s choice. Matt Carpenter doubled home a pair. Ha-Seong Kim tacked on the game’s final run with a sacrifice fly. Padres closer Josh Hader, who’d been limbering up at the start of the inning, was able to sit back down and let Brent Honeywell cover the ninth.

The Padres haven’t had many wins like these. They need more of them.

“The way we answered back as an offense -- they score, we come back and score again -- it was just great at-bats top to bottom,” said Carpenter. “A little bit of a showing of what we know this offense can do.”

On a night filled with impressive offensive numbers, perhaps the most noteworthy was the team’s six hits with runners in scoring position. The Padres hadn’t had more than three in a game since May 1, as their team RISP batting average has fallen to historic lows.

But on Tuesday, their offense was relentless. The Padres pounded out 11 hits, including one from every starter except leadoff man Jake Cronenworth. Veteran backstop Gary Sánchez, newly claimed off waivers, made his first start for San Diego and picked up his first hit with a hard grounder in the eighth off the glove of Marlins third baseman Jean Segura.

“This is a really good group of proven hitters in here,” Carpenter said. “As we know in baseball, there’s ebbs and flows that go through a season. Guys get hot. Guys get cold. Collectively, we’ve been pretty cold as an offense. But today was a great showing, and one that hopefully we’ll build off of.”

That last part is key. Amid the Padres’ 25-29 start, complete offensive performances like this one have been few and far between. Still, they have insisted that if they could reel off a couple games like Tuesday’s, they might be off to the races.

“We have the ability to do it,” Melvin said. “It showed up today. Hopefully we can string a few together.”

Left-hander Ryan Weathers pitched four laborious innings, allowing three runs, and Domingo Tapia surrendered another in the sixth. But the Padres bullpen was mostly outstanding. Tim Hill escaped Tapia’s bases-loaded, none-out mess in the sixth, allowing only one inherited runner to score. Nick Martinez worked his way out of trouble with a double-play grounder in the eighth.

The bullpen kept San Diego close. But, really, that’s been the case all year. The Padres simply haven’t been able to capitalize offensively -- even if they insist they’re precisely the type of team capable of mounting this kind of comeback.

“It hasn’t felt that way for the entire season,” Melvin said. “But it should. Hopefully games like that bring a lot of confidence that we can do that.”

If nothing else, it remains abundantly clear what this Padres offense is capable of.