Padres Stung Again in Arizona

Shields suffers first San Diego loss

Padres starter James Shields reached a whole lot of milestones on Friday night in Arizona. He made his 300th career MLB start, pitched his 2,000th career MLB inning, and took his first loss in a San Diego uniform.

Two out of three ain't bad.

Shields threw 6.0 innings, allowing four runs and eight hits to come out on the wrong end of a game for the first time since joining the Padres. His counterpart, Rubby De La Rosa, was not markedly better but kept the Friars from getting any timely hits.

De La Rosa went 7.0 innings, allowing five hits and just one earned run, which he did to himself when he walked Justin Upton with the bases loaded in the 5th inning to bring home Shields. Rubby then got Matt Kemp to strike out.

The Padres had the bases loaded with one out again in the 8th inning. Cory Spangenberg brought in Justin Upton with a sacrifice fly, cutting the lead to 4-2. But then Brett Wallace, who was just called up from Triple-A El Paso before the game, grounded out to end the inning.

Wallace was added to the big league club instead of fellow infielder Jedd Gyorko. Perhaps one of the reasons is Wallace played his college ball at Arizona State University under current Padres interim manager Pat Murphy.

Or maybe that's just a coincidence.

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