Padres Reliever Doesn't Mince Words After Blowing Lead in Loss to Tigers

The San Diego Padres were well on their way to earning their first win of the 2026 season on Friday night.

Michael King gave the team five strong innings, allowing just one unearned run. Adrian Morejon then recorded six big outs, and the Padres needed Jeremiah Estrada to get three outs so they could give the ball to Mason Miller to close out the game in the ninth inning.

Things didn't go exactly as planned, though.

In the top of the eighth inning with the Padres leading by a run, Estrada faced the 9-1-2 batters in the Tigers order. After striking out Javier Báez to open the inning, Estrada's command went awry.

Estrada walked Kerry Carpenter on five pitches. He walked Gleyber Torres on seven pitches. He then walked Colt Keith on five pitches, and suddenly, the bases were loaded with one out.

Riley Greene tied the game with an RBI single, and then Estrada struck Spencer Torkelson out. Manager Craig Stammen decided to pull Estrada for the left-handed Wandy Peralta against Tigers rookie Kevin McGonigle, a left-handed hitter. He responded with a 10-pitch at-bat that ended in a go-ahead, two-run single. The Tigers tacked on another run on a Dillon Dingler RBI single.

FULL AT-BAT: MLB's No. 2 prospect Kevin McGonigle won the epic 10-pitch battle 😳 https://t.co/qVdiiAexfs pic.twitter.com/dw2u3P0pdf
— MLB (@MLB) March 28, 2026

“Although Estrada was kind of struggling finding the strike zone there, we had planned to get Wandy ready for the lefty [McGonigle] coming up,” Stammen said after the game. “And so we were taking Estrada through Torkelson. And then it was even a decision, because he looked good against Torkelson to leave him in or have Wandy face the lefty. So we chose Wandy to face the lefty. And it was a battle. It was a great at-bat.”

After the game, Estrada took responsibility for the team's second loss of the season that moved them to 0-2 on the year.

“Just a bad outing, you know,” Estrada said. "It sucks just to know we haven’t won a game and yet we had the opportunity and I lost it.”

“It’s unfortunate,” he added. “The way I look at it is it sucks to lose at the end of the day, but get the bad ones out of the way early. That’s all I can say.”

Estrada was one of the Padres' most trusted relievers a year ago, making 77 appeareances out of the bullpen and sporting a 3.45 ERA with 108 strikeouts across 73 innings of work. He only allowed four or more earned runs in an outing three times last year — two of them against the Los Angeles Dodgers and one against the Colorado Rockies at Coors Field.

The Padres will continue to rely on Estrada in high-leverage spots — especially as they wait for Jason Adam to come off the injured list. They'll be looking for him to bounce back in his next outing, which will likely come against the San Francisco Giants in the team's second series of the season next week.