Michael King, Manny Machado and David Peralta help Padres send Pirates to 9th straight loss, 3-0

SAN DIEGO (AP) — Michael King pitched six sharp innings, Manny Machado drove in two runs and David Peralta homered as the San Diego Padres beat Pittsburgh 3-0 on Tuesday night to hand the Pirates their ninth straight loss.

The Padres won for the 18th time in 21 games since July 20 and claimed their eighth straight series. Conversely, the Pirates lost for the 11th time in 12 games.

“They kept chasing that sinker," King said. “It was something that I didn't really have in the game plan, but saw it early and just kept going to it.”

King (10-6) struck out 10, allowed seven hits and didn't issue a walk, throwing 70 of his 93 pitches for strikes. The 29-year-old right-hander won for the fifth time in six decisions since June 29.

“He controlled the counts and that is what allows you to throw up zeros,” Padres manager Mike Shildt said. “He just made a lot of quality pitches.”

Pirates starter Luis Ortiz (5-3) gave up two runs, one earned, and three hits with three strikeouts and two walks in five innings.

Ortiz worked out of a bases-loaded jam with no outs in the first inning, allowing an unearned run on a sacrifice fly by Machado that scored Luis Arraez as San Diego took a 1-0 lead. Pittsburgh's Ji Hwan Bae made an outstanding diving catch on Machado’s sinking liner to prevent further damage.

With Machado on first in the fourth inning, Bae robbed Jackson Merrill with a leaping catch near the wall in center field to end the inning.

Peralta hit a 410-foot shot to right-center in the fifth off Ortiz to make it 2-0.

“Another good swing tonight to get us that second run. He has done a tremendous job,” Shildt said. “He is just a guy who brings it every night. He is a glue guy for our club.”

Machado singled in Arraez from third base in the eighth against reliever Kyle Nicolas for an unearned insurance run.

The Pirates banged out eight hits, but stranded seven runners. Pittsburgh reliever Ben Heller pitched two scoreless innings.

Jason Adam and Tanner Scott each threw a scoreless inning in relief for the Padres. Robert Suarez worked the ninth for his 27th save.

“We like to have leads and have our guys pitch at the end, so that part is great. Clearly we don't want them to pitch every night,” Shildt said when asked about the heavy workload for his bullpen lately. “We have a chance to win ballgames. We have guys in that are capable and able to pitch.”

TRAINER’S ROOM

Pirates: LHP Marco Gonzales was placed on the 60-day injured list with a left forearm strain, the same injury that caused him to miss three months of action from mid-April to mid-July. ... RHP Ryder Ryan replaced Gonzales on the roster after being selected from Triple-A Indianapolis on Monday.

UP NEXT

Pirates RHP Mitch Keller (10-6, 3.56 ERA) will face Padres LHP Martin Pérez (2-5, 4.78) on Wednesday in the finale of the three-game series.

AP MLB: https://apnews.com/hub/mlb

Pittsburgh Pirates' Oneil Cruz tosses his bat as he walks back to the dugout after popping out during the first inning of a baseball game against the San Diego Padres, Tuesday, Aug. 13, 2024, in San Diego. (AP Photo/Gregory Bull)

Pittsburgh Pirates starting pitcher Luis Ortiz works against a San Diego Padres batter during the fourth inning of a baseball game Tuesday, Aug. 13, 2024, in San Diego. (AP Photo/Gregory Bull)

Pittsburgh Pirates starting pitcher Luis Ortiz works against a San Diego Padres batter during the first inning of a baseball game Tuesday, Aug. 13, 2024, in San Diego. (AP Photo/Gregory Bull)

Pittsburgh Pirates center fielder Bae Ji-Wan makes a leaping catch at the wall for the out on San Diego Padres' Jackson Merrill during the fourth inning of a baseball game Tuesday, Aug. 13, 2024, in San Diego. (AP Photo/Gregory Bull)

San Diego Padres' David Peralta, right, celebrates with teammate Kyle Higashioka after hitting a home run during the fifth inning of a baseball game against the Pittsburgh Pirates, Tuesday, Aug. 13, 2024, in San Diego. (AP Photo/Gregory Bull)

San Diego Padres' David Peralta celebrates with teammates in the dugout after hitting a home run during the fifth inning of a baseball game against the Pittsburgh Pirates, Tuesday, Aug. 13, 2024, in San Diego. (AP Photo/Gregory Bull)

San Diego Padres starting pitcher Michael King works against a Pittsburgh Pirates batter during the first inning of a baseball game Tuesday, Aug. 13, 2024, in San Diego. (AP Photo/Gregory Bull)

San Diego Padres starting pitcher Michael King works against a Pittsburgh Pirates batter during the first inning of a baseball game Tuesday, Aug. 13, 2024, in San Diego. (AP Photo/Gregory Bull)

WASHINGTON (AP) — With characteristic bravado, Donald Trump has vowed that if voters return him to the White House, “inflation will vanish completely."

It’s a message tailored for Americans who are still exasperated by the jump in consumer prices that began 3 1/2 years ago.

Yet most mainstream economists say Trump’s policy proposals wouldn't vanquish inflation. They’d make it worse. They warn that his plans to impose huge tariffs on imported goods, deport millions of migrant workers and demand a voice in the Federal Reserve's interest rate policies would likely send prices surging.

Sixteen Nobel Prize-winning economists signed a letter in June expressing fear that Trump's proposals would “reignite’’ inflation, which has plummeted since peaking at 9.1% in 2022 and is nearly back to the Fed’s 2% target.

Last month, the Peterson Institute for International Economics predicted that Trump’s policies would drive consumer prices sharply higher two years into his second term. Peterson's analysis concluded that inflation, which would otherwise register 1.9% in 2026, would instead jump to between 6% and 9.3% if Trump's economic proposals were adopted.

Many economists aren’t thrilled with Vice President Kamala Harris’ economic agenda, either. They dismiss, for example, her proposal to combat price gouging as an ineffective tool against high grocery prices. But they don’t regard her policies as particularly inflationary.

Moody’s Analytics has estimated that Harris' policies would leave the inflation outlook virtually unchanged, even if she enjoyed a Democratic majority in both chambers of Congress. An unfettered Trump, by contrast, would leave prices higher by 1.1 percentage points in 2025 and 0.8 percentage points in 2026.

Taxes on imports — tariffs — are Trump’s go-to economic policy. He argues that tariffs protect American factory jobs from foreign competition and deliver a host of other benefits.

While in office, Trump started a trade war with China, imposing high tariffs on most Chinese goods. He also raised import taxes on foreign steel and aluminum, washing machines and solar panels. He has grander plans for a second term: Trump wants to impose a 60% tariff on all Chinese goods and a “universal’’ tariff of 10% or 20% on everything else that enters the United States.

Trump insists that the cost of taxing imported goods is absorbed by the foreign countries. The truth is that U.S. importers pay the tariff — and then typically pass along that cost to consumers in the form of higher prices. Americans themselves end up bearing the cost.

Kimberly Clausing and Mary Lovely of the Peterson Institute have calculated that Trump’s proposed 60% tax on Chinese imports and his high-end 20% tariff on everything else would, in combination, impose an after-tax loss on a typical American household of $2,600 a year.

The Trump campaign notes that U.S. inflation remained low even as Trump aggressively imposed tariffs as president.

But Mark Zandi, chief economist at Moody’s Analytics, said that the magnitude of Trump’s current tariff proposals has vastly changed the calculations. “The Trump tariffs in 2018-19 didn’t have as large an impact as the tariffs were only just over $300 billion in mostly Chinese imports,’’ he said. “The former president is now talking about tariffs on over $3 trillion in imported goods.''

And the inflationary backdrop was different during Trump’s first term when the Fed worried that inflation was too low, not too high.

Trump, who has invoked incendiary rhetoric about immigrants, has promised the “largest deportation operation'' in U.S. history.

Many economists say the increased immigration over the past couple years helped tame inflation while avoiding a recession.

The surge in foreign-born workers has made it easier for fill vacancies. That helps cool inflation by easing the pressure on employers to sharply raise pay and to pass on their higher labor costs by increasing prices.

Net immigration — arrivals minus departures — reached 3.3 million in 2023, more than triple what the government had expected. Employers needed the new arrivals. As the economy roared back from pandemic lockdowns, companies struggled to hire enough workers to keep up with customer orders.

Immigrants filled the gap. Over the past four years, the number of people in the United States who either have a job or are looking for one rose by nearly 8.5 million. Roughly 72% of them were foreign born.

Wendy Edelberg and Tara Watson of the Brookings Institution found that by raising the supply of workers. the influx of immigrants allowed the United States to generate jobs without overheating the economy.

In the past, economists estimated that America’s employers could add no more than 100,000 jobs a month without igniting inflation. But when Edelberg and Watson factored in the immigration surge, they found that monthly job growth could reach 160,000 to 200,000 without exerting upward pressure on prices.

Trump's mass deportations, if carried out, would change everything. The Peterson Institute calculates that the U.S. inflation rate would be 3.5 percentage points higher in 2026 if Trump managed to deport all 8.3 million undocumented immigrant workers thought to be working in the United States.

Trump alarmed many economists in August by saying he would seek to have “a say” in the Fed’s interest rate decisions.

The Fed is the government’s chief inflation-fighter. It attacks high inflation by raising interest rates to restrain borrowing and spending, slow the economy and cool the rate of price increases.

Economic research has found that the Fed and other central banks can properly manage inflation only if they're kept independent of political pressure. That’s because raising rates can cause economic pain — perhaps a recession — so it's anathema to politicians seeking reelection.

As president, Trump frequently hounded Jerome Powell, the Fed chair he had chosen, to lower rates to try to juice the economy. For many economists, Trump's public pressure on Powell exceeded even the attempts that Presidents Lyndon Johnson and Richard Nixon made to push previous Fed chairs to keep rates low — moves that were widely blamed for helping spur the chronic inflation of the late 1960s and ’70s.

The Peterson Institute report found that upending the Fed's independence would increase inflation by 2 percentage points a year.

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Trump's economic plans would worsen inflation, experts say

Trump's economic plans would worsen inflation, experts say

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