Break out the brooms, folks! Six wins in a row against two different first place teams has the Padres a game above .500 and just two games out of first place. Clayton Richard put together his best start of the season, allowing one run on 7 hits in 8 innings fo work. He only picked up one strikeout, but had a ground out to fly out ratio of 14-4. He had backup in the form of Will Venable and Kyle Blanks. Their home runs have continued the trend of timely hitting we've seen in this fantastic winning streak.
Richard retired the first 7 batters he faced before giving up a double to Cliff Pennington, who then stole third. Ian Kennedy should have struck out after that, but Dale Scott was behind home today, so what did you expect? Kennedy's single drove in the Diamondbacks' only run of the day. Will Venable kept their lead brief as he led off the bottom of the third with his 9th home run of the season. Even more impressive is that it's his 8th homer at Petco Park. I don't know if it's the new fences or the comfort of sleeping in his own bed, but Will is making the park work for him.
The next four and a half innings were pretty uneventful. This was a pitchers' duel through and through. Both teams managed to put the occasional runner on, but nobody could crack the tie until the bottom of the eighth. With one out, Everth Cabrera singled off Brad Ziegler. A two-out walk put Chase Headley on base and Blanks at the plate. On a 1-2 count, the 88 Train crushed an 82 mph curveball deep into left field for his 8th home run of his very short season. Huston Street wrapped things up for his 13th save of the season.
The Padres head up to San Francisco for a three game series, but they may have to do it without Everth Cabrera. He was pulled in the 9th inning. During his postgame conference, Bud Black revealed that he was suffering some hamstring pain. Hopefully he'll return in a day or two.
Edinson Volquez will take on Barry Zito at 7:15 PM tomorrow.