SAN DIEGO (AP) — Ty France drove in four runs with a double and a triple to lead the surging San Diego Padres over the Chicago Cubs 9-7 on Monday night.
Manny Machado had three hits and scored three times for the Padres (19-9), who won for the 17th time in 21 games. They are 18-5 this month (.783), the best April winning percentage in franchise history.
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San Diego Padres' Ty France celebrates his two-RBI triple during the eighth inning of a baseball game against the Chicago Cubs Monday, April 27, 2026, in San Diego. (AP Photo/Gregory Bull)
Chicago Cubs' Seiya Suzuki watches his home run during the second inning of a baseball game against the San Diego Padres Monday, April 27, 2026, in San Diego. (AP Photo/Gregory Bull)
San Diego Padres' Manny Machado gestures while standing on third base during the fifth inning of a baseball game against the Chicago Cubs Monday, April 27, 2026, in San Diego. (AP Photo/Gregory Bull)
San Diego Padres second baseman Fernando Tatis Jr., right, celebrates with relief pitcher Mason Miller after the Padres defeated the Chicago Cubs 9-7 in a baseball game Monday, April 27, 2026, in San Diego. (AP Photo/Gregory Bull)
San Diego Padres' Gavin Sheets, right, celebrates his home run with teammate Fernando Tatis Jr. during the eighth inning of a baseball game against the Chicago Cubs Monday, April 27, 2026, in San Diego. (AP Photo/Gregory Bull)
Gavin Sheets hit a solo homer in the eighth inning to make it 9-5. Mason Miller gave up two runs in the ninth, ending his scoreless streak at 34 2/3 innings dating to last season — a San Diego record.
Nick Castellanos singled home two runs off reliever Ben Brown with two outs in the fifth to give the Padres a 6-5 lead.
Moisés Ballesteros hit his first career grand slam, a 404-foot drive to right field off San Diego starter Randy Vásquez that gave Chicago a 5-3 lead in the third.
Seiya Suzuki had a solo homer in the second for the Cubs (17-12), who have lost three in a row following a 10-game winning streak.
Machado had a single and two doubles, giving him 400 doubles in his career. He exited as a precaution in the seventh with a sore calf after a hard slide earlier in the game, but is expected to be available Tuesday.
France hit a ground-rule double to left-center in the first to score two runs for a 3-0 lead. He tripled down the left-field line in the seventh to drive in two more and make it 8-5.
Vásquez (3-0) gave up five runs and five hits in five innings to earn the win.
Brown (1-1) pitched two innings in relief and took the loss. Cubs starter Matthew Boyd allowed four runs and eight hits in four-plus innings.
Cubs RHP Edward Cabrera (2-0, 2.73 ERA) faces RHP Walker Buehler (1-2, 5.75) in the middle game of the series Tuesday.
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San Diego Padres' Ty France celebrates his two-RBI triple during the eighth inning of a baseball game against the Chicago Cubs Monday, April 27, 2026, in San Diego. (AP Photo/Gregory Bull)
Chicago Cubs' Seiya Suzuki watches his home run during the second inning of a baseball game against the San Diego Padres Monday, April 27, 2026, in San Diego. (AP Photo/Gregory Bull)
San Diego Padres' Manny Machado gestures while standing on third base during the fifth inning of a baseball game against the Chicago Cubs Monday, April 27, 2026, in San Diego. (AP Photo/Gregory Bull)
San Diego Padres second baseman Fernando Tatis Jr., right, celebrates with relief pitcher Mason Miller after the Padres defeated the Chicago Cubs 9-7 in a baseball game Monday, April 27, 2026, in San Diego. (AP Photo/Gregory Bull)
San Diego Padres' Gavin Sheets, right, celebrates his home run with teammate Fernando Tatis Jr. during the eighth inning of a baseball game against the Chicago Cubs Monday, April 27, 2026, in San Diego. (AP Photo/Gregory Bull)
SpaceX launched its enormous Starship into orbit for the first time Monday and successfully delivered the most advanced Starlinks yet, but cut the flight short to ensure safety.
The spacecraft reentered over the Pacific and splashed down north of Hawaii three hours after blasting off from Texas. The company had been aiming for a 10-hour flight, spanning six full laps around Earth, to prove its readiness for NASA’s Artemis moon program.
Starship tipped over and erupted in flames upon splashdown, a dramatic end to the mission.
Founder Elon Musk's Starship almost didn't make it to orbit when one of its engines shut down too soon. But with everything else working well and the bad engine no longer needed, flight controllers decided after several tense minutes to proceed as planned.
“Starship is orbital,” Mission Control announced to cheers.
NASA Administrator Jared Isaacman congratulated SpaceX on reaching orbit and “managing every step in a safe, responsible and especially inspirational way.”
Musk’s showpiece rocket — the biggest and most powerful ever built — carried 26 of the latest Starlink satellites to join the 11,000 older models already providing internet service. They popped out of the spacecraft one by one, drawing more cheers from the SpaceX crowds looking on from the launch site at Starbase, Texas.
The decision to end the flight early came soon afterward. No reason was provided.
It was Starship’s 14th full-scale launch from Texas’ southern tip in three years. The earlier test flights ventured no farther than the Indian Ocean halfway around the world, often crashing in flames and briefly skimming space.
This time, SpaceX was intent on circling the globe from an altitude of 170 miles (275 kilometers) — not just once but six times over almost 10 hours, ending with a Pacific splashdown near Chile. While Starship achieved the proper orbit zipping along at 17,500 mph (28,000 kph), flight controllers opted to play it safe and bring it back several hours sooner, after just a couple laps.
The first-stage booster was never meant to return to the Starbase launch site either, instead dropping into the Gulf of Mexico within minutes of the morning liftoff.
SpaceX wants to ensure that everything works before flying Starship back to Starbase. If the spacecraft breaks apart over land and rains debris onto people, “our popularity would diminish very rapidly,” Musk said at a business summit earlier this month. “That’s why we’re being extremely cautious here.”
Depending on the findings from Monday's orbital debut, the next Starship could return to the launch pad with giant mechanical arms grabbing the hovering spacecraft. If the catch works — Musk gives it even or slightly better odds — then SpaceX will refly the spacecraft by year’s end or early next year.
The 407-foot (124-meter) rocket was designed from the start to be fully reusable — a key to lowering launch costs. SpaceX managed to salvage the last Starship from the Indian Ocean in July. Engineers modified the newly launched Starship’s heat shield based on hands-on inspections from the recovered spacecraft, which is being tugged back to Starbase.
SpaceX is pressing hard to certify Starship for orbital flight, a vital step toward moon and Mars travel.
NASA’s Artemis III mission is coming up as soon as next summer, a triple-launch docking exercise in orbit around Earth between an Orion capsule full of astronauts and competing lunar landers. Jeff Bezos’ Blue Moon will blast off first, then Orion — which will close in for a linkup — then Musk’s Starship for a docking with Orion once Blue Moon is unleashed.
The next mission — Artemis IV slated for no sooner than 2028 — would have astronauts landing on the moon in either Blue Moon or Starship, whichever is ready first. Subsequent moonshots will alternate between the two billionaires’ landers.
Musk originally developed Starship for Mars, intending to launch scores of them with the red planet’s first settlers. For now, he plans to focus on the moon and use Starship to haul satellites into orbit by the truckload, phasing out the company’s frailer Falcon 9 rocket within several years. A second Starship launch site is nearing completion at Florida’s Kennedy Space Center and a third is planned for Louisiana.
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SpaceX's mega rocket Starship makes a test flight from Starbase, Texas, Monday, Sept. 28, 2026. (AP Photo/Eric Gay)
SpaceX's mega rocket Starship makes a test flight from Starbase, Texas, Monday, Sept. 28, 2026. (AP Photo/Eric Gay)
SpaceX's mega rocket Starship makes a test flight from Starbase, Texas, Monday, Sept. 28, 2026. (AP Photo/Eric Gay)
SpaceX's mega rocket Starship lifts off for a test flight from Starbase, Texas, Monday, Sept. 28, 2026. (AP Photo/Eric Gay)
SpaceX's mega rocket Starship makes a test flight from Starbase, Texas, Monday, Sept. 28, 2026. (AP Photo/Eric Gay)
A man watches at sunset as SpaceX's mega rocket Starship is prepared for a test flight from Starbase, Texas, Sunday, Sept. 27, 2026. (AP Photo/Eric Gay)
Seagulls fly near the site of SpaceX's mega rocket Starship as it is prepared for a test flight from Starbase, Texas, Sunday, Sept. 27, 2026. (AP Photo/Eric Gay)
David Orr camps out near the site where SpaceX's mega rocket Starship, behind right, is preparing for a test flight from Starbase, Texas, Sunday, Sept. 27, 2026. (AP Photo/Eric Gay)
David Orr rides his bike past SpaceX's mega rocket Starship as it is prepared for a test flight from Starbase, Texas, Sunday, Sept. 27, 2026. (AP Photo/Eric Gay)
