Gavin Sheets, Ty France, Lucas Giolito shine as Padres complete sweep of Mariners

SEATTLE - Lucas Giolito made it look easy for much of his debut with the Padres.

Then he got wild.

But the Padres’ offense was even more efficient than their new starting pitcher had been, and the sizable lead they built held up in an 8-3 victory over the Mariners on Sunday.

“I’m glad that, despite my struggles,” Gioito said, “we had a big enough lead that it didn’t really make too much of a difference.”

Each of the Padres' first eight hits - of their 10 total - contributed to runs.

Among those hits were two home runs and a double by Gavin Sheets and doubles by Miguel Andujar, Manny Machado and Jackson Merrill.

The Padres led 7-0 when Giolito took the mound to start the sixth inning having thrown just 59 pitches.

The big right-hander, signed by the Padres last month to reinforce a starting rotation thinned by injuries, would not record another out.

Nor would he surrender his second hit of the game.

Giolito walked off the field having loaded the bases on three straight walks.

All three of those runners would score, cutting the Padres' advantage to 7-3, as Yuki Matsui came in and walked the first batter he faced before yielding two sacrifice flies.

Sheets, who started the scoring with a solo home run in the first inning and gave the Padres a 4-0 lead with a two-run homer in the sixth, hit an RBI double in the seventh that put the Padres up by five. Sheets also walked twice Sunday and finished the Padres' six-game road trip 10-for-17 with four homers and eight walks. Ty France went 3-for-4 with three RBIs.

The second of France's three singles drove in the final two runs in the Padres' five-run sixth inning in which the Padres sent nine runners to the plate.

That caused what had been a quick game to stall and had Giolitio on the bench for an extended period.

“It was good until it wasn’t,” he said. “My first game back, I was very focused on pitch-to-pitch execution, which is what I take pride in,” he said. “… A (slim) lead through those first five, and then the offense just goes ballistic, and I just think that I might have let it let off the gas pedal a little bit and lost a little bit of that edge and focus, kind of lost some mechanics there in the sixth inning. And it got a little out of out of control.”

He did enough to get the win, which was secured after Matsui got through a scoreless seventh and Bradgley Rodriguez worked the final two innings.

The victory completed a three-game sweep and a 4-2 road trip that began with two losses in three games against the Brewers and saw the Padres face five starting pitchers with an ERA of 3.78 or lower. That included all three Mariners starters.

Back at 10 games over .500 (28-18) for the first since they were 19-9, the Padres headed home to begin a three-game series against the Dodgers, who they trail by a half-game in the NL West.

“This was a huge series for us,” Sheets said. “We could go one of two ways. Obviously, Milwaukee was a really tough series with really good pitching, and then you come in here, and you’re like, ‘Man, we get no breaks.’ And obviously the Dodgers are next. We didn’t look ahead to the Dodgers series, we stayed focused here, and we got back on track. I think it’s a huge series for us.”

Copyright 2026 Tribune Content Agency. All Rights Reserved.

This story was originally published May 17, 2026 at 7:58 PM.