SAN DIEGO — After 20 innings without a run and with Jurickson Profar having improbably run into an out and down to their final chance, no one watching could have had much confidence the Padres would win Sunday.
Except Consuelo Buelvas, almost certainly viewing from some 3,000 miles away in Colombia.
She watches every Padres game she can and in a pregame conversation Sunday morning told her son to be ready, that even though he was not starting he would hit a home run.
A mother's faith on Mother's Day evidently is all it took for the Padres to score.
Pinch-hitter Jorge Alfaro launched the fist pitch he saw from the Marlins' Cole Sulser all the way to the visitors' bullpen beyond the left field wall to give the Padres a 3-2 victory at Petco Park.
"It was like dreaming," Alfaro said of his run around the bases recalling what his mother said. "How (does) she know that?"
The Padres won three of the four games against the Marlins, but Alfaro's three-run homer provided the Padres' first runs since the fifth inning of Friday's game.
They lost 8-0 on Saturday and had scored just five runs in the three games since returning home from a road trip in which they scored at least five runs in all eight games.
An offense that has only occasionally produced at a high level this season and has skidded into a deep freeze came close to losing for the first time in Joe Musgrove's six starts.
Musgrove, who went seven innings for the second straight start, did not get the win since the Padres trailed 2-0 when he departed. Robert Suarez was the winner after pitching two perfect innings in relief of Musgrove.
The third hit of the five Musgrove allowed was a solo homer by Jazz Chisholm leading off the sixth that gave the Marlins a 2-0 lead.
Musgrove yielded his first two hits in the fourth inning, and the Marlins took a 1-0 lead when Jose Aguilar scored on Garrett Cooper's sacrifice fly. Aguilar had doubled to the gap in left center on a fading liner that caromed off Trent Grisham's glove after he ran 77 feet and dove.
The Padres got no such breaks until they finally broke through.
Profar's one-out single in the ninth was the Padres' sixth hit Sunday. He also made the inning's second out. On a grounder by Trent Grisham, third baseman Joey Wendle, playing on the right side in a shift, dove to make the stop but threw wide of second trying to force Profar. As the ball rolled away for shortstop Avisail Garcia, and with no one covering third, Profar kept going and was tagged out by Sulser, who alertly sprinted from his spot on the mound.
"Over and over and over and over," Profar said when asked if he would try taking the extra base in that situation again.
He then held up both arms, flexed and said, "Our team is great."
The Padres, who improved to 19-8, are arguably a lot more hits away from actually being great. But what they did in the ninth inning did have them feeling like they could accomplish anything.
They certainly did battle to the end, despite not showing much for much of the afternoon in front of a crowd of 37,937 that had been waiting for a reason to get loud.
Rookie shortstop CJ Abrams, one of four players in the starting lineup still batting under .200, followed the Profar out with a single that moved Grisham to third.
Alfaro was sent to the plate in place of José Azocar.
"I'm looking for some power in that spot," Bob Melvin said. "One pitch with with a guy like Georgie can can win a game."
Sometimes a managers moves work out just like he imagines. Alfaro quickly made this one seem prescient, sending the ball an estimated 449 feet at 113.4 mph.
"When I felt that and I saw the ball I was like, 'That should go,'" said Alfaro, who immediately turned and looked at the dugout before beginning a jog around the bases that ended with his being mobbed at the plate. "I can't explain the feeling right now, but it's just unbelievable. She called it earlier. ... It's a lot of emotions."
Afterward, during the celebration in the dugout, the Swagg Chain made its 2022 debut. The celebratory talisman that was such a big part of the padres' vibe early last season, had been hidden away. Some Padres veterans said the chain's reemergence required the right big moment.
Of the moment Alfaro provided, chain originator and keeper Manny Machado said, "Couldn't have been bigger."
