In June, Wil Myers penned one of the best months ever by a San Diego Padres hitter. The calendar has flipped but his script has not.
Strengthening his case for an All-Star invite, the Padres’ first baseman homered on the first day of July, singled and swiped his 12th base as the Padres snapped a three-game skid with a 7-6 win over the Yankees
on Friday night in front of a sellout crowd of 41,321 at Petco Park.
Myers wasn’t the only one doing the heavy lifting.
Derek Norris doubled in a pair in a three-run first, Ryan Schimpf hit his first career homer in the second and Brandon Maurer survived a shaky ninth inning to save a strong six-inning start for Colin Rea.
The 25-year-old right-hander struck out five, scattered four hits and a walk and allowed his only earned run on Brian McCann’s sixth-inning solo shot.
The other run crossed the plate in the second after Norris’ passed ball set up Jacoby Ellsbury’s run-scoring single an inning after Rea fetched a groundball from Chase Headley to end a bases-loaded threat.
Schimpf answered an inning later with a home run onto the pier and the Padres got two more in the seventh when Myers hit his 19th homer just right of center field.
“It felt good to get it out of there for sure,” said Schimpf, who played 733 minor league games before getting his first big league call-up on June 14.
He homered to right-center leading off the second inning.
“It’s kind of always been my game, I guess, ever since I was little,” said Schimpf, who hit 15 homers in 51 games at Triple-A before being called up.
“Kind of a big-swing guy trying to drive the ball every time. That’s just kind of how I’ve always been, but obviously I don’t want to be big swing, big miss. I want to go up there and put together a good at-bat and hit the ball hard.”
Eleven of those blasts came in June, when Myers led the majors in RBIs (33) and extra-base hits (21) and was tops in the NL in total bases (75).
His June .765 slugging percentage ranked behind only Brandon Moss among NL hitters and his 11 homers and 25 runs scored tied Kris Bryant for the most in the NL.
Left-handers Brad Hand and Ryan Buchter each struck out two before left-hander Matt Thornton allowed the first
three hitters to reach base in the ninth.
Maurer allowed a run-scoring double to Didi Gregorius, an RBI groundout to Aaron Hicks, a run-scoring wild pitch and a pinch-hit double to Carlos Beltran before retiring the final
two hitters to record the first save in the post-Fernando Rodney era.
Yankees starter Nate Eovaldi (6-6) allowed six runs on seven hits - including both Schimpf’s and Myers’ homers - and three walks in 4 1/3 innings.
Headley went 0-for-3 in his return to Petco Park before he was pulled from the field during a double-switch in the sixth inning.