San Diego Padres at Cleveland Guardians

Casey Mize was acquired at the Trade Deadline to bolster the Padres’ erratic rotation. He looked like an ace in his third start with the team on Sunday afternoon. Mize scattered three hits over six dominant innings and earned his first National League victory as San Diego beat the Guardians, 5-0, in the rubber game of the interleague series at Progressive Field. The right-hander struck out three, walked one and didn’t allow a runner to get past second base. He also overcame a rain delay -- the Padres’ first of the season -- that pushed the start time back 3 hours, 11 minutes. “It’s tough to make it through Cleveland without weather issues, and this was a weird one,” Mize said. “Every hour, I would just check in to see what was going on. “But when I got out there, it felt normal. It felt like the game started right on time for me.” Luis Rengifo, Gavin Sheets, Jase Bowen and Jake Cronenworth all hit solo homers for San Diego (67-58), which is tied with Philadelphia (67-58) for the second and third NL Wild Card spots. The Guardians didn’t send more than four batters to the plate in any inning against Mize. “Casey went out and attacked from pitch one; that’s what he does,” Padres manager Craig Stammen said. “He throws a ton of strikes and tries to keep other teams on their heels.” It was Mize’s second straight quality outing after a poor debut following his trade from the Tigers. The former of the two games saw him allow a career-high eight runs over 3 1/3 innings in a loss to the Diamondbacks on Aug. 5. Mize bounced back in a no-decision against the Brewers on Aug. 10, giving up two runs over six frames with six strikeouts. Overall with San Diego, he is 1-2 with a 5.87 ERA. “After the first game, I was asked if it was an outlier -- and yes it was,” Mize admitted. “I’m certainly settling in more, and the guys gave me some runs early today to get us going.”