Padres 8, Giants 4: Friars give the Giants an L for the road

Third time’s a charm, and the Padres charmed the socks off of the 6PM Petco Park crowd for the third and final 2018 game of a three game home series against the Giants at home. Thanks to a big early inning and some late inning theatrics the Padres successfully avoided the sweep.

Robbie Erlin laid the foundation, posting 5 innings and giving up 5 hits and 3 earned runs, which all came out of the 2nd inning. He struck out 3 and walked 2, leaning mostly on his 9 groundouts to retire enough Giants batters to get through to a solid Pads pen. The Robert Stock locked down the 6th inning, with Wingenter, Stammen, and Maton handling the rest of the game. Stammen managed to give up just one home run, keeping the Giants under the Padres’ lead.

That lead was built in the second inning with the Friars racking up 5 runs to answer to the Giants’ 3. The scoring started with a Cory Spangenberg RBI-single, bringing home Eric Hosmer. Freddy Galvis singled too, getting home Franmil Reyes. Manuel Margot squeezed Spangy home with a sac fly, then Wil Myers decided to crush his 11th home run to score Galvis.

Fast forward to the 8th inning, the Giants pushed the game to a 5-4 score. With two on, one out, and a 3-1 count, Ray Black grooved a 99 MPH fastball smack down the middle and Galvis rewarded such a juicy pitch by smashing it into the seats in right field. That sat the Padres on top of the Giants with an 8-4 lead, making it nice and easy for Phil Maton to punch in the W.

The Pads hit the road one more time, with an off day Thursday before heading up the 5 to Dodger Stadium. They’ll follow up with a final road series against the Giants before taking on the D-Backs in Petco to close out the season.