Padres beat Guardians to start a season 5-0 for first time in franchise history

Kevin Acee, The San Diego Union-Tribune on Apr 1, 2025

Published in Baseball

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Kyle Hart returned to the major leagues on a misty evening at Petco Park and helped the Padres to a bit of history.

Five games into the season, the Padres have not lost.

Monday’s 7-2 victory over the Guardians made them the first team in the franchise’s 57-year history to begin a season with five victories.

Hart allowed two runs – on solo homers by José Ramirez and Austin Hedges — en route to his first big-league win.

He got a big boost from two big innings, both of which featured half of Gavin Sheets’ four RBIs, and from Manny Machado’s MENSA-level and Oscar-worthy play in the fifth inning.

Before what was possibly the most unique 1-5-4 double play ever perpetrated, the Guardians had runners on first and second with no outs after a Gabriel Arias single and a walk by Hedges began the fifth.

Then, with Bryan Rocchio at the plate, Arias took off for third. Hart’s throw to Machado beat Arias by five steps. Arias ran slowly into Machado standing up and essentially wrapped his arms around the third baseman while standing between him and second base.

Machado astutely attempted a throw to second base, albeit without the ball in his right hand. Third base umpire John Bacon called Hedges out by virtue of Arias’ interference. Both Machado and second baseman Jake Cronenworth were credited with assists.

That left the bases empty. So a single by Rocchio was rendered harmless, and Hart ended the inning by getting Steven Kwan on a fly ball to right field.

Hart, a 32-year-old left-hander signed in February after spending last year in Korea remaking his delivery and adding a pitch and resurrecting his career, threw 80 pitches Monday. He allowed five hits and walked one.

Hart’s previous stint in the major leagues consisted of 11 innings over four games in 2020. He allowed 21 runs (19 earned) and spent the next two seasons in the minor leagues with the Red Sox, Mariners and Phillies.

While with the NC Dinos in 2024, Hart was magnificent. He won the Korean Baseball Organization’s equivalent of Cy Young award after leading the league with 182 strikeouts and finishing with the second-lowest ERA (2.69) in 26 starts (157 innings).

He is on the Padres major league roster for at least as long as Yu Darvish is nursing a tender elbow, which is expected to be at least another couple weeks.

The Padres clobbered a pitcher also making his first start with a new team.

Luis L. Ortiz, acquired by the Guardians from the Pirates in a December trade, allowed four runs in the second inning, as the Padres took a 4-1 lead on a pair of singles, a pair of walks, a double and a sacrifice fly.

On the night his first bobblehead giveaway swelled the Monday crowd to 43,404, Jackson Merrill led off the second with a single. Walks by Jake Cronenworth and Xander Bogaerts followed, and Sheets drove in Merrill and Cronenworth by lining a double to left field on the first pitch he saw. Jason Heyward’s fly ball to right, the first out of the inning, scored Bogaerts and moved Sheets to third. And Fernando Tatis Jr.’s two-out single brought in Sheets.

Hedges, making his first start of the season back in the ballpark where his career began in 2015, began the third inning with a home run to the Western Metal Building’s second balcony.

The Padres padded their lead with three runs in the next half-inning.

They all came with two outs after the Padres wasted a runner on second base with no outs.

Machado led off the bottom of the fifth with a single and stole second before Jackson Merrill sent a 102 mph line drive to the right side that Arias, the Guardians’ second baseman, caught and threw to Rocchio covering second base.

Another Cronenworth walk and an infield single by Bogaerts followed, and Sheets doubled down the left field line to score both. Jason Heyward’s first hit of the season — and first with the Padres – drove in Sheets to make it 7-2.

Sheets was 3-for-3 with a walk. His heroics Monday, plus the fact he is 7-for-15 this season and a hit a game-tying home run in the seventh inning of the season opener, has already inspired a chant of “Holy Sheets” at Petco Park.

Only one other Padres team had ever been 4-0 — the 1984 team that ended up going to the franchise’s first World Series.