SEATTLE — The Padres struck some significant blows early, but they blew a lead and lost the last game that matters.
Their three home runs in the second inning would be mere footnotes to history, as the Mariners’s 9-6 victory Monday night clinched the first Vedder Cup.
The victory was the Mariners’ fourth in four meetings between the teams this season, rendering the remaining two games here this week utterly meaningless.
The Vedder Cup trophy — an actual 1963 Fender guitar designed by Pearl Jam frontman Eddie Vedder, a one-time resident of both San Diego and Seattle — will remain at T-Mobile Park for at least a year.
Still available as consolation prizes for the Padres in 2025 are their first National League West title since 2006, their first back-to-back playoff appearances since 2005-06, their first World Series appearance since 1998 and their first championship ever.
The first night of the rest of their season — or post-Dodgers, against whom they finished the season series on Sunday — did not go well for the Padres.
It appeared they would lose ground in the standings to both the team they are batting for the division title (the Dodgers, who led the Reds late) and the team chasing them in the wild-card race (the Mets).
Now, the Padres will turn their attention to trying to solve the Mariners.
Their 3-13 record against their interleague “rivals” since the start of the 2022 season is the Padres’ worst mark against any opponent in that span.
Monday at least did not resemble the horrid three-game sweep at Petco Park in May, when the Padres scored once in each game and were outscored 15-3.
No, the Padres on Monday had their second four-homer game in six days. Before that, they had not hit more than three homers outside of Coors Field all season.
Monday night, they hit three in the second inning.
The Padres rank 29th among 30 teams in total home runs and 30th in percentage of runs via home runs.
T-Mobile Park does not historically give up many home runs, ranking in the bottom half of the league most seasons. But the Mariners are hitting quite a few this season — with the second most in the majors entering the game — and an average of nearly 2½ homers per game are being hit in their home ballpark this season.
And the conditions were right, as Seattle is experiencing what is considered a heat wave in the Northwest. It was 84 degrees when the game began Monday evening, and the roof was open.
In all, the teams combined for six homers, the first five in a span of the game’s first 14 batters.
At that point, the Padres led 4-3.
Cal Raleigh’s 50th home run of the season, which extended the MLB record he set a day earlier for home runs in a season by a player who is primarily a catcher, gave the Mariners a 1-0 lead.
The Padres hit a home run every other batter in the second inning — a solo homer by Gavin Sheets with one out, a solo homer by Jake Cronenworth with two outs and, after a Freddy Fermin walk, a two-run homer by Fernando Tatis Jr.
It was the first time Tatis had homered more than a month and ended a career-long drought of 128 plate appearances.Tatis dropped the bat at his side as he watched the ball sail a projected 416 feet and over the center field wall. As he neared third base, he did a tiny stutter step. And as he rounded the bag he looked into the Padres dugout and smiled.
The Padres were alive in the chase for the Vedder Cup.
But the lead did not last.
A one-out error by Manny Machado on a strange-hop grounder in the bottom of the second was followed by Jorge Polanco lining a ball over the wall in left field to get the Mariners to within a run.
By the time the Padres scored again — on Ramón Laureano’s solo homer in the seventh inning — the Mariners had tied the game against Padres starter JP Sears in the fourth and scored five times in the sixth against David Morgan and Wandy Peralta.
Sheets missed getting the Padres within a run by a few feet when he launched a ball down the right field line in the eighth inning, just to the foul side of the pole.
Sheets walked on the next pitch to load the bases before Laureano struck out looking against Matt Brash to end the inning.
The Padres got two on with one out in the ninth against Andres Muñoz, another former Padres pitcher, before Luis Arraez grounded out to bring in one run and Machado struck out to end the game.