On Friday night the Padres got the biggest of blasts, a walk-off home run by Melvin Upton Jr. to beat the Dodgers at Petco Park. On Saturday night they walked off the Dodgers again. This time, quite literally.
Yangervis Solarte, who was taken off the disabled list before the game, drew a bases loaded walk from Dodgers reliever Chin-Hui Tsao to force in Wil Myers with the game-winning run in the bottom of the 11th inning to give the Padres a 3-2 win and a chance to sweep Los Angeles.
For most of the game the Padres hitters were like human windmills against Dodgers pitching. They were swinging a lot but hitting nothing but air. Dodgers starter Alex Wood struck out 13 in 6.0 innings. San Diego batters whiffed 19 times total.
But the Padres were able to push across a couple of runs on sacrifice flies by Matt Kemp and Alexi Amarista and that was good enough to keep it close because Cesar Vargas was nails.
The Padres rookie gave up just two runs and whiffed seven in 7.0 innings. A trio of Friars relievers combined to throw another 4.0 innings of no-hit ball and in the 11th it was the Dodgers bullpen that blinked.
Tsao allowed a single to Myers and gave up a long fly ball to Upton, whose bid for back-to-back walk-off bombs ended just in front of the left field fence. Tsao then loaded the bases with two more walks before giving Solarte his free pass on four pitches.
San Diego can complete their weekend sweep on Sunday behind Colin Rea, who takes the mound against Kenta Maeda.
