*Photo from 10news.com*
Watch out in the NL West. David Peralta homered, Luis Arraez drove in the game winning run, and the San Diego Padres defeated the Pittsburgh Pirates with a 7-6 victory Thursday afternoon in Pittsburgh.
After the series in Pittsburgh last year was their low point, the Padres had a different result this time. They swept the 3 game series against the Pirates to reach 5 wins in a row and 14 wins in 16 games, now just 2 1/2 games back of the Los Angeles Dodgers for the NL West lead.
San Diego manager Mike Shildt said after the game "Great squad strikes again. Hunger for competition, hunger for winning games. Can't say enough about it. We take everything and give nothing away. That's what pure competition is about. Just looking to do that as consistently as possible."
Manny Machado gave the Padres a 2-0 lead in the first inning with a two run home run to left field. One inning later, Peralta cranked a two run homer of his own to right field, doubling the Padres lead to 4-0. In the 6th, the Pirates cut the deficit to 4-3 on RBI singles by Oneil Cruz and Ji-Hwan Bae, plus Rowdy Tellez scoring on a wild pitch.
Joey Bart gave the Pirates a 5-4 lead in the 7th with a two run home run to left center field. That lead lasted until the top of the 9th inning, when Kyle Higashioka reached on a force out and throwing error that scored two runs and Arraez added an RBI double to make it 7-5. Tellez made it 7-6 in the bottom of the inning with an RBI single.
Machado said after the game "Randy went out there, gave us innings. He knew he had to go out there and stretch it out, especially with how the bullpen is. Those little things go a long way. When guys are doing that and picking up each other, you just have nothing but respect for every single one of them. You want to go out there and battle, continue to battle every single day, continue to battle every single out. That’s what this team’s made of."
Randy Vasquez started for the Padres and allowed 3 runs on 6 hits and a walk in 5 2/3 innings. Carl Edwards Jr didn't get any outs before Yuki Matsui allowed two runs in 1 1/3 innings. Jason Adam pitched a scoreless 8th and Robert Suarez allowed one run while getting the save in the 9th.
Luis Ortiz allowed 4 runs in 6 innings in his start for the Pirates. Dennis Santana and Jalen Beeks pitched the 7th before Aroldis Chapman worked a clean 8th inning. David Bednar blew his 5th save of the season in the 9th, requiring Kyle Nicolas to come in and finish the inning.
Bednar said of his latest blown save "These guys battled their butts off, and to be in the position, up in the ninth, I should be able to convert those. And especially the past two nights, not being able to is tough. But you know what? I’m confident I’ll be able to get through this, and I’ll be able to convert this next couple."
Both teams hit the road for their upcoming series this weekend. Martin Perez will start the series opener for the Padres against the Miami Marlins on Friday night, while Mitch Keller takes the mound for the Pirates as they take on the Los Angeles Dodgers.
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