Jake Cronenworth turned two swings into four runs, then supplied a fifth RBI without leaving the yard. His three-hit afternoon carried the Padres past Miami 7-3 on Sunday at Petco Park, closing the series with the kind of concentrated production that left the Marlins chasing from the second inning forward.
Cronenworth opened the scoring with a two-run homer in the second. He did it again in the fourth, another two-run shot that stretched San Diego's lead to 4-0. The sequence forced Miami to solve two problems at once: finding offense against Walker Buehler and keeping the middle of the Padres order from turning every baserunner into immediate damage.
Fernando Tatis Jr. added a solo homer in the seventh, his 25th of the season. Miami answered with three runs in the top half of that inning, cutting a four-run deficit to one before Tatis restored separation. Cronenworth's final RBI and another San Diego run in the eighth pushed the margin back to four and removed the tying run from the immediate picture.
Buehler worked 6 2/3 innings and allowed three earned runs. He struck out six and improved to 9-6 with a 4.56 ERA. The line reflects a start that controlled the first six innings before Miami's seventh-inning push. San Diego needed relief help to finish that frame, but it never surrendered the lead Buehler carried into it.
The Padres collected 10 hits and committed no errors. Miami managed four hits, placing extra weight on the seventh because there were few other chances to build an inning. Cronenworth had three of San Diego's hits by himself. Five RBIs meant he accounted directly for most of the scoring even before considering the effect of clearing the bases twice.
San Diego scored in four separate innings, a distribution that kept the game from depending on one outburst. The second and fourth belonged to Cronenworth, the seventh to Tatis and the eighth to the lineup's last answer. Miami produced its entire total in one inning. Once that rally ended, the Marlins had to create another sequence against a lead that was already growing again.
His two homers also changed how the late innings could be managed. A one-run game would have required San Diego to protect every matchup and every 90-foot advance. The early four-run cushion absorbed Miami's best inning. Tatis answered before the Marlins could take another plate appearance, and the eighth-inning pair restored a conventional closing situation.
The result continued a late push toward what would be the franchise's first run of three consecutive postseason appearances. That larger destination was not secured by one Sunday win, and the remaining schedule still decides the berth. The useful sign was the shape of the victory: a starter carrying the game deep, middle-order power and a response immediately after the opponent's only rally.
Cronenworth's afternoon can be read in three steps. His second-inning swing established control. The fourth-inning homer made Buehler's early work count twice. The eighth-inning RBI closed the door after Miami briefly found a route back. San Diego did not need a long chain of rallies; it needed one hitter to keep changing the score before the Marlins could change the game.