Padres Win 8-6 and Make History at Chase Field on the Fourth of July

Back-to-back series wins. Longest win streak of the season. First ever sweep at Chase Field. Happy Flight home.

Our Padres capped a phenomenal road trip with another win last night. Some late inning fireworks gave our boys the edge and secured the victory.

The pitching wasn't perfect. Jason Marquis gave up three runs on a Jason Kubel homer in the first inning to spoil an early Padres lead. He was also charged with another run in the seventh. But he put up zeros in the 2nd through 6th innings, and a couple of manufactured runs, including a game-tying RBI double by Marquis himself, kept our Padres in the game. Our offense in the first half looked a lot like how classic Padres baseball should look like. Not a ton of runs, but they got on base, took advantage of mistakes by Arizona, and found ways to get guys home.

The second half of the game, though, is when the boys really stepped it up. Bud Black put Yasmani Grandal on the bench last night, to the dismay of many fans, but we got to see him step up in a pinch hit situation in the 8th inning. And he made sure to take advantage of it by blasting a 2-run homer over Justin Upton's head and out of his reach. Grandal became the just the fourth player since 1900 to hit four home runs in his first six major league games.

In the 9th innning, Alexi Amarista , who made the start in left field last night, hit a sac bunt and Diamondbacks pitcher Bryan Shaw committed an error. Amarista reached second and Chris Denorfia scored. Later that inning, Amarista scored on a Yonder Alonso RBI double. Those runs came at a good time, as Nick Vincent and Huston Street both gave up runs in the 9th inning. But Street finished the inning by getting Upton to pop out for the final out and our Padres stood victorious.

The major factor in the win, however, is that even though our pitchers made a few mistakes, it never really felt like we were out of the game. Even after Marquis gave up the home run to Kubel, it didn't feel like the game was out of reach like it would have in the past. And that has everything to do with how our offense has stepped up lately. Grandal and Amarista have both been on a tear, but the team overall has just looked better. It's really encouraging to see some good things finally happen after the season we've been through so far and hopefully they can keep it going in this upcoming homestand.