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Padres sweep Giants, head to LA for first-place showdown

Kevin Acee, The San Diego Union-Tribune on

Published in Baseball

SAN FRANCISCO — The San Diego Padres will arrive in Los Angeles in first place.

Their chartered flight will touch down at LAX with them holding a half-game lead over the Dodgers in the National League West.

Depending on how the Dodgers fare against the Angels in Anaheim later Wednesday evening, the Padres will either lead the division by a game or be back tied when a three-game series begins Friday at Dodger Stadium.

An 11-1 rout of the Giants on Wednesday afternoon, which completed a three-game sweep at Oracle Park, assured the Padres of that.

It was Tuesday’s victory that got them even with the Dodgers, who led the division by nine games on July 3.

The start of a 13-game stretch in which the Padres will play only the Giants and Dodgers could not have gone much better.

The goal for the two-week period is to catch the Dodgers and bury the Giants, and they may have already accomplished the latter.

The Giants are a season-low three games under .500 (59-62) and six games out of playoff position.

They will be at Petco Park for four games beginning Monday before the Padres host the Dodgers for three.

On Wednesday, the Padres put away their fifth straight victory early with their biggest inning in more than three months.

Their seven-run second inning included three walks, a two-run single that caromed off a bag, one run scoring on a throwing error and another on a passed ball.

The Padres sent 11 batters to the plate and faced two pitchers in the inning.

Jake Cronenworth drove in the first two runs when his bases-loaded grounder up the middle bounced off the corner of second base and away from shortstop Willy Adames.

 

Elias Díaz followed with the third walk of the inning to re-load the bases before Fernando Tatis Jr. grounded another two-run single up the middle and into center field.

Luis Arraez’s fly-ball to center field scored Ramón Laureano, who had drawn a nine-pitch walk in front of Cronenworth. A double by Manny Machado would have merely moved Tatis to third, but left fielder Heliot Ramos held onto the ball as he went to throw it in and instead threw it almost directly into the grass. Tatis continued running.

That was the end of the day for Giants starter Kai-Wei Teng.

Jackson Merrill hit reliever Spencer Bivens’ first pitch through the left side, moving Machado to third. And Machado scored when Bivens’ next pitch sailed high and caromed off catcher Patrick Bailey’s glove.

The Giants would use five relievers in all, including infielder Christian Koss in the ninth, while Nick Pivetta allowed one run in 6 2/3 innings before Wandy Peralta got one out and Yuki Matsui got six.

The biggest problem for Pivetta was waiting out long innings.

Things got tense for him just once, and that was just slightly and for just a bit.

Pitching coach Ruben Niebla was compelled to visit the mound when the Giants loaded the bases with two outs in the third inning, which Pivetta ended five pitches later on Dominic Smith’s fly-ball to center field.

The Padres scored three more runs in the fifth inning on doubles by Xander Bogaerts and Ryan O’Hearn and a home run by Laureano, all with one out.

They made it 11-0 in the seventh on singles by Laureano, Cronenworth and Tatis.

Pivetta (12-4, 2.87) was two outs away from completing seven scoreless innings for the fifth time this season when he allowed his fourth hit of the day, a triple by Jung Hoo Lee, and a sacrifice fly.

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©2025 The San Diego Union-Tribune. Visit sandiegouniontribune.com. Distributed by Tribune Content Agency, LLC.

 

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