It was the ninth time the Padres faced the Giants this season, and for the ninth time the Friars fell to San Francisco. The National League West division leaders swept the Friars in the series finale at AT&T Park Wednesday afternoon.
The Padres are in last place in the NL West after dropping three games in a row and seven of the last nine. The pitching rotation has done well on the mound in recent outings, but they haven’t seen the necessary run support. James Shields was on the hill today against former Padres Jake Peavy. Shields is now 2-6 and holds an ERA of 3.07. He surrendered two runs and five hits in his six innings of work.
San Francisco got on the board first in the bottom of the second inning. Kelby Tomlinson blooped a single into right field just out of second baseman Alexi Amarista's reach. Brandon Crawford scored on that one and the Giants took the 1-0 lead.
The Giants would stay ahead of the Friars for most of the game but in the seventh inning Alexei Ramirez came up to bat with one man on base and sent one up to right field. That brought in Brett Wallace to score and the Padres shortened the Giants lead to one run.
At the top of the eighth inning the tide started to change for the Padres. The Giants were up 3-1 when Yangervis Solarte knocked a two run homer, his first home run of the season, and it cleared the wall in left center field to tie the game at 3-3.
The tie would hold and take the game into extra innings but in the bottom of the 10th a walk-off single by Giants slugger Brandon Crawford gave San Francisco the 4-3 victory. The Padres are now 0-9 against the Giants and hold an overall 19-28 record this season. The Padres have a much needed day off on Thursday before they continue their road trip to face the Arizona Diamond backs in a three game series at Chase Field.
