Michael King took a no-hitter into the seventh inning of his latest stellar start and Kyle Higashioka hit a two-run double as the San Diego Padres sent the Cleveland Guardians to a rare home-series loss with Sunday’s 2-1 victory.
King (8-6) retired the first 10 Guardians he faced before walking Angel Martinez in the fourth. It was Martinez who also recorded Cleveland’s first hit against King, when he dropped the ball into short center field to lead off the seventh with San Diego ahead 2-0.
Martinez then went to third on a Jose Ramirez single off the glove of first baseman Luis Arraez, and Ramirez was thrown out trying to stretch that hit into a double. Josh Naylor followed with a groundout to second that made it a one-run contest.
King’s day ended after that inning. He also struck out six while dropping his ERA to 3.28 and recording his fourth consecutive start of allowing just one earned run. Robert Suarez recorded a four-out save, his 23rd of the year, for the Padres, who built on Saturday’s 7-0 victory to win a third straight road series.
Cleveland, meanwhile, has totaled three hits in the last two games after posting 11 in Friday’s 7-0 series-opening win. Mired in an 8-13 rut, the AL Central-leading Guardians have scored 17 runs while losing six of the last eight and dropped a home series for just the second time this season.
The Padres made Cleveland starter Ben Lively (8-6) work by throwing 50 pitches in the first two innings, mostly in working deep counts and fouling off pitches. Jackson Merrill drew a one-out walk in the second and went to third on Ha-Seong Kim’s two-out single to right to conclude another lengthy at-bat. Both scored on a double by the No. 9 batter, Higashioka, for a 2-0 San Diego lead.
Lively, however, settled down and despite yielding six hits and two walks, gave up just those two runs while lasting 5 1/3 innings.
Higashioka, Jurickson Profar and Xander Bogaerts each had two hits for San Diego.
–Field Level Media