Padres Claim Road Series in San Fran

June 24, 2014; San Francisco, CA, USA; San Diego Padres second baseman Alexi Amarista (5) hits a RBI-double scoring first baseman Jake Goebbert (4, not pictured) against the San Francisco Giants during the fifth inning at AT&T Park. Mandatory Credit: Kyle Terada-USA TODAY Sports

Despite a historically bad finale, the Padres (34-45) got the series victory against the first-place Giants (45-32). The offense exploded in the first two games, and then just as quickly shut back down for Wednesday’s finale. The last road series win for the Padres was May 30-June 1 against the White Sox.

The Padres hit .206 in the series. Taking out the no-hitter by Tim Lincecum, the Padres hit .286 in the first 2 games. It was a night and day difference offensively. The offensive player of the series is a toss-up between Seth Smith, who had 4 hits, one of them a double, a walk and an RBI, and Alexi Amarista with 3 hits and 3 RBI in Tuesday’s 7-2 win. On Tuesday, 8 different players had hits for San Diego. On Monday it was 6 different players. This is an encouraging sign. In the first two games, the Padres combined for 20 hits and 13 runs. They had 5 extra base hits.

Pitching also helped the Padres win the series. Especially, the pitching of young players. Rookie and recent call-up Odrisamer Despaigne dominated the Giants on Monday night, pitching 7 shutout innings only allowing 4 hits in his big league debut. This is after he had an ERA over 7 in Triple-A. Jesse Hahn also had a great outing, pitching 6 solid innings, striking out 8 and only allowing 4 hits. The bullpen once again was stellar, they did not allow a run in the series.

We saw a little bit of everything in this series. The Padres finally got to hitting, and then they were no-hit. The young pitchers dominated, and the veteran on the staff (Ian Kennedy) struggled a little bit. The Padres are now 12.5 games back in the division, 2 games behind the Rockies and 1.5 games ahead of the Diamondbacks. The Padres get a day off to honor the fallen legend Tony Gwynn in a public memorial service and then it is back to business Friday against the last-place Diamondbacks in San Diego.