Padres rout Orioles, lose Xander Bogaerts and Freddy Fermin along the way

BALTIMORE - A team desperate for victories sure went through it for one on Saturday.

“That was a grind, for sure,” Fernando Tatis Jr. said afterward.

Far more than a 9-3 victory usually is.

The Padres started quicker offensively than they had all season. Their starting pitcher flirted with blowing that lead virtually his entire outing. Two players left the game after being struck in the head by baseballs. One of their relief pitchers and their manager were ejected in the ninth inning.

They never trailed but were never truly comfortable, and they might have lost a couple of mainstays in what has become an ever-changing lineup.

The Padres replaced shortstop Xander Bogaerts and catcher Freddy Fermin in a matter of minutes in the middle of the sixth inning.

Bogaerts had been hit in the helmet by a 94 mph fastball in the fifth inning, stayed in the game and scored and played shortstop in the next half-inning before Sung-Mun Song took over at shortstop in the bottom of the sixth.

Fermin was warming up reliever Yuki Matsui when a pitch bounced in the dirt in front of the plate. The catcher turned his head and was struck under the helmet near his ear.

Manager Craig Stammen said Bogaerts felt “spasms” in his neck and “wasn’t feeling so well” but termed the move to take him out as “precautionary.” Bogaerts will be evaluated Sunday morning to determine whether he will play in the series finale.

Stammen indicated Fermin might be held out for a time given that he has taken multiple baseballs to his facemask already this season.

Rodolfo Durán came in to catch and guided five relievers through the final four innings.

The fifth of those, Adrian Morejón, was brought in to get the game’s final out when pitcher Ron Marinaccio (and then a steamed Stammen) were ejected after Marinaccio hit Gunnar Henderson with a pitch the umpire crew determined was retaliatory.

Stammen was most irked that the Padres had to squander a day off for Morejón.

“You want Ron to finish the game there, and we’ve got to bring one of our best pitchers in to finish the game,” Stammen said. “I just didn’t think it was warranted. I’d have been fine if they just warned everybody. We would have been fine, and moved on from there.”

It was arguably Durán's solo homer in the eighth inning that finally made it seem as if the Padres were not teetering on the edge of a cliff.

Two-run homers by Jackson Merrill and Samad Taylor (the first of his career) had given them their biggest first inning of the season and their biggest inning at any point in a game in nearly a month.

The Orioles cut that 4-0 lead in half in the bottom of the first, and Randy Vásquez just kept coming close to letting them have more all throughout his five innings.

But despite never retiring the Orioles in order, he didn't allow another run and won for the first time in five starts.

Vásquez was allowed to work out of trouble in the fifth and be in position to get the decision because the Padres had extended their lead to four runs in the top of that inning.

“If we wouldn’t have scored, he probably (would) not have made it through that fifth inning,” Stammen said.

Two walks by Fermin gave the Padres their only baserunners against Trey Gibson after the rookie right-hander walked two and surrendered three hits in a 29-pitch first inning in his fourth career start.

Merrill walked to start the fifth inning, and Machado followed with a groundball that initially saw him called out as the back half of a double play. But a replay review showed he had beat the throw to first base.

Three pitches later, Gibson's day ended when he sent a 94 mph fastball off the back of Bogaerts' helmet.

As Orioles manager Craig Albernaz went out to get Gibson, who was looking straight down at the ground, several players and coaches in the Padres dugout yelled in the pitcher’s direction.

Gibson had earlier in the inning knocked down Machado with a fastball up and in.

Bogaerts got up almost immediately but remained near home plate while being checked on by head athletic trainer Mark Rogow and Stammen. He walked to first base as Akin finished his warmups.

Akin promptly walked Gavin Sheets to load the bases, and Taylor followed by flaring a single into center field that scored Machado.

Stammen replaced the left-handed-hitting Will Wagner with Nick Solak to face the left-handed Akin. Solak, who was called up Saturday morning when Miguel Andujar went on the injured list with a hamstring strain, sent the second pitch he saw to the warning track in right field to bring in Bogaerts and push the Padres' lead to 6-2.

Solo home runs by Sheets in the seventh, Durán in the eighth and Machado in the ninth gave the Padres more runs than they had scored in any of their previous 33 games. The Orioles scored once against Bradgley Rodriguez in the seventh.

It was more all a bit more arduous than a six-run victory generally is.

“Every win in the big leagues is hard,” Machado said. “Nothing is easy.”

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This story was originally published June 13, 2026 at 4:18 PM.