Freddy Fermin’s homer gives Padres a jolt, sets up Mets-Padres rubber match

The San Diego Padres played their way out of a familiar rut on Saturday, answering the New York Mets early and then turning a late deficit into a one-run win. With the Mets holding a 2-1 lead after Marcus Semien’s solo homer in the seventh inning, San Diego got the swing that changed the game. Freddy Fermin launched a go-ahead two-run home run that put the Padres in front for good, and Mason Miller closed it out to give San Diego a 3-2 victory.

Griffin Canning, in his turn against a Mets lineup with both top-end talent and plenty of young legs, ran into trouble in the second inning. New York scored the first run when Brett Baty delivered an RBI single off Canning, giving the Mets a 1-0 advantage. But San Diego did not let that early problem linger. In the bottom of the third, the Padres evened the score as Fernando Tatis Jr. produced an RBI single, with the ball coming off the second-base bag after a stolen-base sequence.

The middle innings largely belonged to pitchers and positioning, with both clubs trading base-running looks and defensive moments. San Diego’s response to New York pressure remained more about small details than big comebacks at the time, including inning-ending plays that kept the Mets from extending their advantage. That steadiness mattered, because Semien’s homer in the seventh flipped the emotional tone back toward New York.

Semien’s swing was his stated production trend, and the timing was critical. His solo shot made it 2-1, setting up the kind of late-inning situation where a team chasing its form can either press or tighten. San Diego leaned on its leverage hitters and found the payoff from Fermin. In the bottom of the seventh, Fermin homered off Austin Warren for his go-ahead two-run blast, tying the game’s scoreline to the Padres’ season-level need for wins that feel earned. MLB’s game log noted it was Fermin’s first homer since August 11 and his first hit in more than three weeks.

Miller then took over in the ninth to secure the Padres’ win. From a team-building standpoint, Saturday’s result did more than stop the bleeding. It ended San Diego’s six-game losing streak, according to pregame reporting, which framed the matchup against the Mets as a chance to get back into a more normal rhythm. The win also set a clear next step: the Padres and Mets were tied after Friday’s Mets shutout, 5-0, which meant Sunday’s contest at Petco Park carried the weight of a rubber match.

Yahoo Sports’ FriarWatch preview characterized Saturday’s victory as not just a pause in the losing streak, but as part of a recent pattern of high-leverage series-ending games for the Padres. For Sunday, the storyline is straightforward: San Diego’s ability to respond after surrendering that early second-inning run will be tested again, and it will come down to whether the club can turn its late-inning opportunities into the same kind of front-running swings it got from Fermin.