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There’s no good way to tell you this, but Brad Hand is dead. Kirby Yates and Phil Maton, too. Any Padres reliever you liked was brutally murdered by the Reds tonight, and the murder weapon was a longball. Scooter Gennett is the suspected leader of the group of violent bandits that turned Great American Ballpark into a site of hapless violence in the seventh inning this afternoon. He is still at large, and he is considered armed and extremely gritty.
Wil Myers tried to defend his teammates, putting the Padres on board in the fourth. Cory Spangenberg and Luis Pirella picked up a pair of RBI in the fifth to get Dinelson Lamet off the hook. But Kirby Yates got shaky in the seventh, walking Jesse Winkler and then beaning Zack Cozart. And then Andy Green pulled Yates while he was working a 2-2 count against Joey Votto, sending the doomed Hand to the mound instead. The All-Star tossed two balls to walk Votto and load the bases. Adam Duvall struck out for the third out, but then Gennett hit his grand slam, followed immediately by his accomplice Eugenio Suarez, who hit his 20th bomb of the year. Things didn’t get any better for Maton, who gave up back-to-back homers to Cozart and Votto in the eighth.
The Padres will have a memorial service for their fallen friends before facing the Dodgers at 7:10 PM Friday evening.