Dylan Cease allowed only one hit and struck out 11 over six shutout innings on Saturday as the San Diego Padres snapped a five-game losing streak with a 4-0 win over the visiting Atlanta Braves. Cease (8-8) walked three while giving up just one hit in a start of at least six innings for the fourth time this year. He threw 69 of his 106 pitches for strikes and closed out his outing in style, striking out the side swinging in the sixth.
Reynaldo Lopez (7-3) took the loss after yielding 11 hits and three runs in six innings while walking no one and fanning two. Lopez permitted a hit in every inning but kept his team in the game thanks to three double plays. However, San Diego got to Lopez for three two-out, run-scoring hits. David Peralta had the first one in the second, slashing a ground-rule double into the left field corner for the only run the Padres needed. Luis Arraez made it 2-0 in the fifth when he followed Tyler Wade’s infield single and steal of second with an RBI double down the right field line for the last of his three hits.
In the sixth, Peralta delivered the last of his three hits, looping a single to right-center that scored Manny Machado from third. Machado capped the scoring in the eighth with his 13th homer of the year, taking Jesse Chavez’s sinker an estimated 403 feet to center. It was Machado’s third hit of the game. Atlanta’s best scoring chance against Cease came in the fourth after Matt Olson and Marcell Ozuna walked with one out. After a popout, Olson and Ozuna each moved up a base on a wild pitch, but Cease got Eddie Rosario to chase a 1-2 slider below the zone for an inning-ending strikeout. Ozuna, whose infield single to lead off the second was the only hit off Cease, had two of the Braves’ five hits.
