SAN DIEGO (AP) - The Detroit Tigers left town after losing two of three games to the San Diego Padres, with each defeat coming against a power pitcher.
Tyson Ross outdueled AL Cy Young Award winner Max Scherzer, and Jedd Gyorko and Xavier Nady homered as the San Diego Padres beat the Detroit Tigers 5-1 on Sunday to take two of three.
“It’s one of those games where we were not getting anything going,” manager Brad Ausmus said. “It was a blah game for us. We couldn’t string anything together. We had some good swings, we hit some balls decent.”
On Friday night, the Tigers were one-hit by Andrew Cashner and lost 6-0.
After two shaky opening starts, Ross (1-2) struck out seven and held the Tigers to one run and six hits in seven innings. He walked one.
“His stuff is deceptive,” Torii Hunter said. “His slider comes out of his hand looking like a fastball, then just breaks out of nowhere.”
Scherzer (0-1) allowed four runs and four hits in five innings, struck out 10 and walked three. The Tigers have scored three runs for Scherzer in his three starts.
“We’ve seen Max where he was unhittable,” Ausmus said. “There were times today where he was unhittable, there were times when he was human. You’re going to have days like that, but he certainly kept us in the game.”
The Tigers have lost four of six under the rookie manager, who was working in the Padres’ front office when Detroit hired him in November.
Gyorko homered to left leading off the second, his first.
The Tigers tied it in the fourth, when Hunter hit a leadoff double and scored on Victor Martinez’s one-out single.
Scherzer faltered by walking Chase Headley and Yonder Alonso to open the fourth and the Padres jumped on him for a 4-1 lead. Venable doubled down the right-field line to bring in Headley and Alonso, and Ross singled to left to bring in Venable.
“I knew that I needed to get ahead in that situation,” Scherzer said. “I’m aware that he is aggressive and is willing to attack. Sometimes you have to go with your best pitch and believe in that pitch. I believed that if I threw a fastball down and away I could have success. Unfortunately, I left it over the middle of the plate and got beat by it.”
Nady, 35, hit an opposite-field pinch homer off Ian Krol an estimated 422 feet into the sandy play area beyond the fence in right-center leading off the seventh. Dating to 2012, his last three big league hits have been home runs. He homered Tuesday at Cleveland. Before that, his last homer was on Sept. 30, 2012, while with San Francisco, at Petco Park against Padres closer Huston Street.
NOTES: It was Nady’s seventh career pinch homer. … Padres manager Bud Black said there’s a “probability” LF Carlos Quentin will take batting practice on the field before Monday’s game against Colorado. Quentin opened the season on the disabled list with a bone bruise in his left knee. … The Tigers are off Monday before opening a homestand Tuesday night, with RHP Anibal Sanchez (0-0, 3.00) scheduled to start against Zach McAllister (1-0, 2.31) of the Indians. The Padres continue their 10-game homestand with the opener of a four-game series against Colorado. LHP Eric Stults (0-2, 5.59) is scheduled to start against RHP Jordan Lyles (2-0, 3.86).
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