Padres strike out 16 Guardians, maintain perfect start

Michael King fanned 11 over five shutout innings Tuesday night and Jackson Merrill homered as the San Diego Padres extended the best start to a season in franchise history with a 7-0 win over the visiting Cleveland Guardians.

King (1-0) gave up just two hits and a walk before four relievers combined for four hitless frames as San Diego won its sixth straight game. After walking Steven Kwan to start the game and getting Jose Ramirez to pop out, King struck out the next six batters. Cleveland pitchers finished the night with 16 K's.

Merrill snapped a scoreless tie in the fourth inning with his first homer of the year, jumping on a first-pitch breaking ball from Logan Allen (0-1) and clouting it an estimated 411 feet over the right-center-field wall.

Allen lasted 5 1/3 innings, yielding seven hits and four runs with five walks and a strikeout. He skated out of early jams by inducing three double plays but his luck ran out in the middle innings.

The Padres scored in their last five offensive innings, upping their advantage to 3-0 in the fifth on a sacrifice fly by Fernando Tatis Jr. and a two-out RBI single by Luis Arraez. They made it 4-0 in the sixth when pinch hitter Jake Cronenworth slashed a run-scoring single off reliever Paul Sewald.

The Guardians helped San Diego out in the seventh with some shoddy defense that led to two runs without a hit. Second baseman Gabriel Arias bobbled Xander Bogaerts' grounder, allowing Tatis to score, and catcher Bo Naylor bounced a throw into center field on Bogaerts' steal of second, enabling Manny Machado to score.

Tatis tacked on the final run in the eighth with an infield out that plated Cronenworth, who singled, reached second on Jason Heyward's infield hit and got to third when third baseman Ramirez dropped Elias Diaz's popup. Diaz was ruled out on the infield fly rule.

Cronenworth and Machado each collected two of San Diego's 10 hits. The Padres finished with three stolen bases, marking the third time in six games they swiped at least three bags.

--Field Level Media