MIAMI — The Marlins helped Blake Snell feel at home.
The Padres left-hander, so beleaguered on the road this season, shut down a team that hits about as poorly as any in the big leagues.
And, just barely, the Padres made the three runs they scored against one of the four rookie relievers the Marlins put on the mound in an eight-pitcher bullpen game stand up for a 3-2 victory Thursday night at loanDepot park. (box score.)
Jurickson Profar drove in the first two runs against Jordan Holloway, with a fielder’s choice grounder in the second and a single in the fourth. Manny Machado’s sacrifice fly in the fifth provided what stood as the deciding run.
The Padres finished 2-for-13 with runners in scoring position, failing to bring home runners that reached second or third with no outs in both the eighth and ninth innings. They left 14 men on in the game.
It was OK, because on this night Snell was who the Padres thought they were getting when they traded for the 2018 American League Cy Young Award winner in December.
Snell was as consistently in and around the strike zone and close to as dominant as he has been in his first season with the Padres in going six innings for just the third time — and the first time on the road.
At 88 pitches after six innings, the left-hander began the seventh and would face one batter. The run he was charged with scored after he departed.
He had to that point navigated leadoff walks in the first and sixth, a leadoff double in the second and a one-out double in the fifth. But after Jorge Alfaro began the bottom of the seventh by lining a double to right field, manager Jayce Tingler was quickly out of the dugout and taking the ball from Snell.
A 3-0 lead that could well have been more had the Padres not been stranding runners all night quickly became 3-2.
Austin Adams, who had not allowed an earned run in 38 appearances (30 2/3 innings), replaced Snell and could not harness his slider. He threw it 21 times in 21 pitches, and just nine were strikes. His second one hit the first batter he faced, Jon Berti, in the back of the head. Berti left the game and was replaced by pinch-runner John Curtiss.
After Adams struck out Lewis Brinson, Joe Panik flared the first pitch he saw from Adams into left field to make it 3-1.
Adams got a second out, on a fly ball, before walking Miguel Rojas to load the bases. Even though Emilio Pagán had been warming up for some time, Tingler left Adams in to face Starling Marte, who never even thought about swinging at four straight sliders well off the plate.
Pagán was finally brought in and ended the inning by getting Jesus Aguilar on a fly ball to center field.
A single by Profar and double by Wil Myers gave the Padres another opportunity to add on, but Trent Grisham, Fernando Tatis Jr. and Jake Cronenworth all made outs.
Machado led off the ninth with a double before Tommy Pham, Austin Nola and Profar all were retired.
Pagán got the first two outs of the eighth, Tim Hill got the inning’s final out with one pitch, and Mark Melancon earned his major league-leading 29th save with a perfect ninth inning to preserve Snell’s first road victory.
Snell had a 9.08 ERA in his first 10 road starts, the latest of which was Saturday in Washington when he allowed four runs in four innings. Home teams were feasting on his often-erratic offerings, batting .322 against him and reaching base at a .451 rate.
Snell’s longest previous road start was 5 1/3 innings at Dodger Stadium on April 25. His other nine road starts ranged between two-thirds of an inning and 4 2/3 innings.
He threw more strikes than usual on Thursday and exploited the team with the major leagues’ lowest OPS. The Marlins, who are also averaging the second-fewest runs in the majors, got three hits off Snell.
