CINCINNATI — There is no major league ballpark less than a mile high quite like the one hard on the northern bank of the Ohio River.
“This is a good place,” Padres manager Bob Melvin said Tuesday afternoon while seated in the visitors’ dugout at Great American Ball Park. “Especially if you get the ball in the air, it seems like this can be a homer place. … I think every day we look to get the offense going a little bit more, so today would be a good start.”
The Padres hit the ball hard and far, got a bit of good fortune and got what they hope is a start Tuesday, riding an eight-run fourth inning to a 9-6 victory over the Reds. (Box score.)
Through the chilly night air and in front of a bunch of red seats and a purported total of 10,056 people, the Padres lined and sliced and blooped and rolled hits in a way that hadn’t happened for them this season.
They entered the game ranked 21st in the majors in batting average and 18th in slugging percentage.
The eight runs in the fourth inning were more than the Padres had scored in all but two of their 17 games this season. Their 12 hits in the game were their second most.
It happened here, in one of the major league’s tiniest parks and against a team that lost for the 14th time in their 17 games.
Padres starting pitcher Joe Musgrove weathered trouble much of his time on the mound and did so well enough to complete six innings for the fourth time in four starts this season. He allowed five runs, though the only two earned ones came in the fifth inning.
Ha-seong Kim homered in the third inning to tie the game 1-1.
That was the score until the Padres began the fourth inning with seven straight hits and a walk before the ninth batter of the inning made an out.
They first plastered pitches from Reiver Sanmartin and then rode a string of good fortune to drive him from the game.
Jake Cronenworth and Manny Machado hit hard singles to start the fourth before Jurickson Profar hit a soft liner into right field that scored Cronenworth.
Eric Hosmer followed with his first home run of the year to make it 5-1. It was the Padres’ 19th home run in their past 11 games here, one more even than they have hit in their past 11 games at Coors Field (elevation 5,280 feet, or about 4,800 feet higher than Cincinnati). They entered the game with 17 homers this season, tied for 17th in the majors.
Three straight soft singles, none hit harder than 75.9 mph, loaded the bases before Kim drew a four-pitch walk that ended Sanmartin’s night.
Jeff Hoffman recorded the inning’s first out by getting Austin Nola on a fly ball out to right field before Cronenworth grounded a ball just inside first base and down the line for a bases-clearing triple that made it 9-1.
The Padres began the fifth inning with two singles but didn’t score, and they had only one more hit the rest of the game.
Steven Wilson, Luis Garcia and Robert Suarez pitched an inning apiece in relief to finish off the Padres’ fourth victory in four games against the Reds this season. Suarez allowed a leadoff homer to Nick Senzel in the ninth before retiring the next three batters.
After sitting for 30 minutes during the long top of the fourth, Musgrove began the bottom of the fourth inning by walking Joey Votto. Kyle Farmer followed with a single against the shift and Senzel reached first base when his swing clipped Nola’s glove. And just like that, the Reds had the bases loaded with no outs.
They scored one run on Colin Moran’s grounder to Cronenworth at second and another when Kim took the throw from Cronenworth and bounced a throw past first base, allowing Farmer to score.
The Reds added two runs in the fifth on back-to-back doubles by Jonathan India and Tyler Naquin and an RBI groundout by Joey Votto.
The Reds, who entered the game with the second-worst average and lowest on-base percentage in the major leagues, had four hits in the first three innings. They had five in both of the final two games in San Diego last week and six in the first one. They would finish with eight hits Tuesday.
