On Saturday night the Padres formally inducted the late, great Kevin Towers into their Hall of Fame. Towers, who passed away in January from a rare form of thyroid cancer, was the General Manager who put together four of the franchise’s five playoff teams and was the architect of the 1998 Friars that won the National League pennant.
That team won a boatload of close games en route to the World Series. The bullpen (long a strength of teams Towers assembled) had 30 wins in 1998. On a night where the Padres wore those throwback uniforms they won a close game, too.
1st baseman Eric Hosmer hit a walkoff single in the 13th inning to give the Padres a 2-1 win over the Cardinals at Petco Park. It’s the first time this year the Friars have won an extra-inning game.
Getting to that point, however, was fairly laborious.
The Padres took a 1-0 lead in the 2nd inning on a Freddy Galvis RBI groundout. For a time it looked like that would be enough for Tyson Ross. The right-hander tossed five shutout innings before Jose Martinez hit an RBI double in the 6th inning. It was the only run Ross gave up and it cost him a win.
After that the bullpens locked horns and threw up zeroes for almost two hours. In the 13th inning A.J. Ellis walked and was lifted for pinch-runner pitcher Jordan Lyles, partly because Ellis is a catcher without much speed and partly because he was the last position player used so a pitcher had to get on the bases. Travis Jankowski drew a walk and then Hosmer pulled the first pitch he saw from Cardinals reliever Mike Mayers down the right field line to bring home Lyles with the game-winner.
The Padres can split the series with St. Louis on Sunday afternoon behind Clayton Richard, who makes the Mother’s Day start against Adam Wainwright.
