Padres: Padres Come Back Late to Beat Dodgers

Hits came aplenty in Thursday night’s come-from-behind victory as the San Diego Padres defeated the Los Angeles Dodgers 10-7 at Petco Park. Yangervis Solarte led the way for the Padres going 4-5 and Jedd Gyorko hit a go-ahead two run homer in the 8th inning to cap a dramatic comeback after the Padres fell behind 7-4 earlier in the game.

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Rookie Colin Rea pitched 5 solid innings for the Padres, allowing just 2 runs in the 5th on 4 hits and striking out 5. As reported by Beth Maiman and Jay Paris, interim manager Pat Murphy said this of Rea: “I think he showed me something. In all his outings this was his best one in my opinion.”

Unfortunately for the Padres Odrisamer Despaigne was unable to hold the slim 4-2 margin coming on in relief in the 6th inning. He quickly walked one and allowed two hits to load the bases before being pulled for Marc Rzepczynski, who allowed 3 hits and made an error in the inning. When the dust settled the score was 7-4 Dodgers. One of those hits was the first two RBI for highly touted Dodgers call-up Kyle Seager.

Yet the Padres had not given up. Derek Norris drove in 1 in the bottom half of the inning with a double to bring the Padres within 2, and Yangervis Solarte blasted his 12th homer of the year in the 7th to bring the Padres within 1. Kevin Quackenbush pitched two innings of scoreless relief to reduce his ERA to 3.55 on the season and keep the Padres poised for the comeback.

With Jim Johnson on the mound after Justin Upton reached base, Jedd Gyorko hit a definitive go-ahead home run to put the Padres ahead 8-7. A Melvin Upton Jr.triple and Solarte double later and the Padres were up for good 10-7. Solarte ended up a triple short of the cycle on a big night as he attempts to prove he can handle third base everyday for the Padres in 2016.

With Craig Kimbrel unavailable after a long appearance the previous night, Joaquin Benoit picked up his second save of the season with a 1-2-3 ninth.

The highlight of the night for the Dodgers was Seager’s debut, who finished 2-4 with Carl Crawford also having a 2 hit evening. Former Padre Mat Latos was pulled after 4 innings and allowing 4 runs, showing his trademark immaturity after the game when asked what he thought about manager Don Mattingly‘s decision:  “A quick leash. It’s hard to get into a rhythm when you are getting yanked out fast.”

It was a good night for the Padres as they pulled within 10.5 games of first place and 4 games of .500 with still 28 games to play. The Giants continue their rapid decline, losing their 6th straight and 7th time in 10 games to remain a season high 6.5 games out of first place. The Padres do have an interesting end of season schedule with their breakdown as following:

6 against the Dodgers (First place)

6 against the Giants (Second place)

6 against the Diamondbacks (Tied with Padres for third place)

4 against the Rockies (5th place)

3 against the Brewers (4th place in NL Central)

In other words – they play the three teams directly above them the most and two teams with records at least 10 games back from their own.

While a comeback to win the division would be of epic proportions – certainly finishing above .500 and in second place is well within reason.

Next: Padres AFL Update