Padres beat Red Sox for first series win

Kevin Acee, The San Diego Union-Tribune on Apr 5, 2026

Published in Baseball

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BOSTON — Jackson Merrill’s energy before the game and heads-up dash from first to home in the first inning sparked the San Diego Padres to victory in the final of their second series of the season.

On Sunday, he powered them to an 8-6 victory over the Boston Red Sox and their first series win with a home run that just cleared the Green Monster in the eighth inning.

While Merrill continued to enjoy Fenway Park, home of the team he grew up rooting for, the rest of the Padres continued to heat up in the cold.

In winning a second straight game for the first time, they scored more than three runs for just the second time in their nine games. They set a season high with 12 hits and two home runs.

Manny Machado helped the Padres to a three-run fourth inning with an RBI single and by taking a pickoff attempt off his foot. He lifted them to three more runs in the fifth inning by blasting his first home run of the season almost out of the ballpark.

It was a wild but not all that wet afternoon.

A hard rain began while the Red Sox scored four runs in the third inning, and the Padres scored three runs in the top of the fourth as the rain let up.

It was an unusual first three innings for Phillies starting pitcher Ranger Suarez. It was a unmanageable third inning for Padres starter Walker Buehler.

Both were gone before an out was made in the fifth inning.

Suarez allowed three baserunners but faced the minimum through three innings and also got a two-pitch strikeout.

Fernando Tatis Jr. walked with one out in the first inning before Suarez ended the inning by snagging Jackson Merrill’s 99 mph comebacker to the mound and beginning a double play.

The Padres reached base twice in the second inning but both men were thrown out trying to turn one base into two — Miguel Andujar on a throwing error by shortstop Trevor Story and Xander Bogaerts on a single to right field.

No Padres got on in the third, and Luis Campusano didn’t even get a chance to see a third pitch in his strikeout, as he was assessed a strike for not making eye contact with Suarez by the time eight seconds were remaining on the pitch clock.

Buehler took the mound in the third having allowed just a single and having thrown 36 pitches, 22 of them strikes.

But very much like in his first start six days earlier, two strong innings devolved in a flurry of missed pitches in the third.

He walked No.9 batter Carlos Narváez on four pitches and Roman Anthony on five pitches before getting the first out on a grounder to first. His first pitch to Jarren Duran was below the zone but was hit hard on the ground into right field for a double that put the Red Sox up 2-0.

After another out, Wilyer Abreu’s triple to the corner in right field got Duran home and sent Buehler to the dugout, as Stammen replaced him with Kyle Hart.

Masataka Yoshida lined a double to right field on Hart’s second pitch to make it 4-0.

Hart would go on to finish the next two innings, by which time the Padres held a 6-4 lead.

They finally got a runner safely to second base when Tatis double with one out in the fourth. Merrill and Machado followed with singles, and both moved up on an errant throw and fortunate bounce. Narváez, the Red Sox catcher, made the bad throw to first base to try to get Machado, whose foot inadvertently kicked the ball into foul territory.

Andujar struck out before Bogaerts worked a full-count walk to load the bases and Nick Castellanos lined the first pitch he saw into left field to drive in Merrill and Machado.

The Padres followed a multiple-run inning with another for the first time this season when Campusano singled at the start to chase Suarez and Merrill did singled after reliever Greg Weissert has gotten two strikeouts before Machado sent an 0-1 changeup well in off the plate and at his knees into the bare hands of a man wearing a Padres jacket in one of the box seats atop Fenway Park’s famous 37-foot left field wall.

Bradgley Rodriuguez replaced Hart and worked around a pair of singles in the sixth before being charged with two runs in the seventh — the first a result of two hits he allowed and the other on a game-tying double by Yoshida off Wandy Peralta.

Merrill’s 384-foot blast, his second homer of the season, led off the eighth against Tyler Uberstine.

It was the second game in a row the Padres answered back in the next half inning both times the Red Sox scored.

Gavin Sheets doubled and scored on Tatis’ sacrifice fly in the ninth.

Jeremiah Estrada worked a scoreless eighth and Mason Miller the ninth for his second save in two days and fourth of the season.

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