Padres 3, Pirates 2: Wood repels boarders in Friar debut

Tonight marked the Padres debut of Travis Wood, who looked pretty solid. He tossed six innings, holding the Pirates to two runs on two hits while fanning seven. He was backed up by Jose Pirela and Cory Spangenberg, who combined to go 4-for-7 while scoring all three San Diego runs.

The Pirates got on board in the third, when Wood had some control issues. With two outs, he beaned Josh Harrison, and then fell behind 2-0 to Andrew McCutchen before throwing a cutter that didn’t, well, cut. The Pittsburgh star didn’t waste any time crushing it to put the Friars down by two.

They cut that deficit in half in the fourth. Pirela hit a one-out single, and then Spangy drew a walk behind him. Jabari Blash grounded out, but avoided the double play. A walk to Allen Cordoba set Wood up to help himself out. The pitcher laced a single into left that scored one run, and might have scored a second had Cordoba not been cut down trying to take third.

Pirela hit another one-out single in the sixth, which set up Spangenberg for a game-tying RBI triple.

After all that small ball, the winning run didn’t even score on a hit. Daniel Hudson spiked a slider that squirreled past the catcher, giving Spangenberg time to take home in the process. After that, a trio of scoreless innings from Craig Stammen, Kirby Yates, and Brad Hand wrapped things up in a neat little bow.

Dinelson Lamet gets the rock as the team tries for four in a row tomorrow night. First pitch at 5:40 PM.