Randy Vásquez, Padres squander big first inning and big night by Ty France in loss to Rangers

ARLINGTON, Texas - What Ty France did against Jacob deGrom was not enough to overcome what Randy Vásquez had done to him by the Rangers, as a very good first inning by the Padres devolved into a very bad 9-7 loss.

France had the most productive game of his career and by one measure the biggest night anyone has ever had against deGrom in one of the strangest and most disappointing defeats the Padres have suffered in the regular season in some time.

France hit his first career grand slam and the first grand slam anyone had ever hit off deGrom to put the Padres up 5-0 in the first inning.

But the Padres' biggest first inning of the season was followed in rapid succession by Vásquez's worst inning ever, as the Rangers sent 11 batters to the plate and scored six times in the bottom of the first.

France led off the fourth inning by sending a home run to the Padres' bullpen beyond left-center field that tied the game 6-6.

And in the half-inning after France made it even, Vásquez and that lead lasted two more batters, as a single and a double made it 7-6.

The Rangers would go up by two with a run against David Morgan in the sixth. That made Gavin Sheets' solo homer leading off the eighth inning merely a tease, especially when Wyatt Langford led off the bottom of the eighth with a home run off Jason Adam.

Before all that, France did get halfway to scoring another run by hitting a double in the sixth.

That made him the first batter to ever have three extra-base hits against deGrom, who has Hall of Fame credentials and might not be considered the best of his generation, perhaps only due to repeated injuries.

But France was stranded at second after his two-out line drive to the corner in left field against deGrom, who went from throwing 31 pitches in the first inning to making it through six innings on 106 pitches and getting the win.

“We’re facing one of the best pitchers in all of baseball,” manager Craig Stammen said. “We put up five runs off him in the first, and good at-bats. He settled in a little bit, like great pitchers do. We were able to get another one off of him, but not quite enough the way their offense was producing runs.”

The Padres got 10 hits, three of them by Samad Taylor and none in five at-bats apiece by Jackson Merrill and Manny Machado. While Machado dropped back into the bottom spot among MLB’s 156 qualifying hitters, Stammen said after the game he had no intention of moving his cleanup hitter down in the batting order, in large part because Machado has 12 home runs and Stammen maintains the belief Machado will begin producing at his career norms.

One of the Padres’ three singles in the first inning was one with two outs by Sheets that gave them a 1-0 lead two batters before France added four runs to that lead with his homer over the right field wall.

“It was a weird, weird game,” France said. “(There were) 11 runs in the first inning between the two teams. You don’t see that too often. They swung the bats well. We swung the bats well. One of those days. … Any time you put a five-spot up in the top of the first, you feel like you’re in control. You let that slip away, it sucks. But you gotta go at it again tomorrow.”

The Padres will have to put behind them the first loss by any MLB team this season in a game in which it led by five or more runs after a half-inning. Friday the was the first time since 1989 that the Padres scored at least five runs and allowed at least five runs in the first inning.

The bottom of the first began with Vásquez dropping what would have been the first out at first base before he went about throwing too many balls and too many pitches.

He had done that a lot over his previous five starts, but he had never done it like this in a single inning.

Vásquez (6-5, 4.17) walked the second batter he faced before getting an out. The next six batters reached base, three of the next four on doubles.

The third of those, by Jake Burger, got the Rangers to 5-4. Nicky Lopez followed with a hard grounder that ricocheted off Vásquez's right knee and bounced to the right side of the infield for a single that tied the game.

And a dribbled single to the left side by former Padres catcher Elias Díaz put the Rangers ahead.

“I got upset with the error I made,” Vásquez said. “My emotions got the best of me.”

Yuki Matsui was up in the bullpen in the first and second inning, but Vásquez took just five pitches to get through the third.

Matsui began throwing again after Josh Jung led off the bottom of the fourth inning by lining a single to left field. One batter later, Matsui was jogging in from the bullpen with the Padres down by a run after Langford sent a double to the gap in left-center that scored Jung.

The Padres made an effort to focus on their 10 hits and how they fought back from having the wind taken out of them in the first. They have averaged 4.6 runs while batting .248 and slugging at a .415 rate over their past 10 games. Those numbers are up from 2.6 runs a game with a .192 average and .327 slugging percentage over their previous 35 games.

“Obviously, it’s a tough loss,” Sheets said. “But you’ve got to find some positives in the offense. You can’t take a step back from it and be frustrated. That’s the biggest thing for us to do now.”

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This story was originally published June 19, 2026 at 8:39 PM.