Padres stay hot and sit one game behind the Dodgers in the NL West after a 12-3 eruption that stretched over two hours and 58 minutes. San Diego slugged Minnesota’s pitching staff from the sixth through the eighth, turning a tight game into a bullpen-workout for the Twins and forcing 226 pitches in nine innings, a historic number. Taj Bradley worked five frames for Minnesota before the Padres' order woke up, and the bullpen chaos that followed opened the door for fantasy-friendly gains from Padres bats.

The historic pitch-tally and the finish in Minnesota lift the Padres into real division contention, but the piece also signals a deeper workload story: if San Diego’s lineup stays productive, streaming opportunities rise. Yet the Twins’ extreme pitch count underlines how volatile a high-scoring outburst can be for fantasy managers, especially with late-inning bullpen usage looming in the schedule ahead.

Taj Bradley looked the part in five strong innings for Minnesota, flashing 99 mph on the fastball and missing with his splitter and curve in a clean start that yielded one run and six strikeouts before the late fade. Mick Abel couldn’t escape trouble, failing to record an out in the pivotal seventh as San Diego surged to a 12-3 win at Target Field. Minnesota’s offense earlier built a 3-1 lead behind Byron Buxton’s homer and Trevor Larnach’s RBI hit, but the Padres exploded late, riding a back-to-back Laureano-Sheets RBI sequence and a multi-hit rally to pull away.

Fantasy-relevant angles lean toward Bradley’s immediate upside in dynasty/keeper leagues as he settles into Minnesota’s rotation, while Abel’s command and length remain red flags for speculative rosters. Padres hitters fed on Abel’s struggles, with Cronenworth, Machado, Díaz and Laureano contributing keys in a seven-run seventh that turned a close game into a rout.