PHOENIX — The Padres on Sunday played their 24th game in the season’s first 25 days.
Before enjoying their first day off since April 5, they went about building an early lead, added on and then held on for a 7-5 victory over the Diamondbacks.
Matt Carpenter drove in at least one run all four times he went to the plate, finishing with five RBIs in all. Jake Cronenworth drove in the Padres’ other two runs.
The only thing that might temper any sense of relief by the Padres, who got their record back to .500, is concern over the status of starting pitcher Yu Darvish.
Before walking off the mound accompanied by an athletic trainer with two outs in the sixth inning, Darvish had allowed just one run on two hits. He briefly doubled over after throwing a pitch, and manager Bob Melvin was quicky out to the mound and calling for a reliever. The nature of the injury wasn’t immediately known.
Brent Honeywell relieved Darvish with runners and second and third and a 2-0 count against Pavin Smith. Honeywell threw the final two balls in succession to Smith to load the bases before striking out Jake McCarthy to end the inning.
Honeywell allowed back-to-back homers by Alek Thomas and Nick Ahmed leading off the bottom of the seventh before ending the inning. Tim Hill allowed two runs in the eighth.
That necessitated a second save in two nights, third save in the series and eighth save of the season by Josh Hader, who obliged with a perfect ninth inning.
The Padres chased Arizona starter Drey Jameson after he had to take 43 pitches and face nine batters in a three-run first inning that took more than 25 minutes.
A sacrifice fly by Cronenworth scored Juan Soto with the first run before Carpenter took over the offense for a while.
His 406-foot double to the base of the wall in center field put the Padres up 3-0. His sacrifice fly in the third inning made it 4-0. After the Diamondbacks scored in the bottom of the fourth when Ketel Marte got their first hit, a leadoff triple, and scored on Evan Longoria’s sacrifice fly, Carpenter’s solo homer in the fifth restored a four-run lead at 5-1.
Cronenworth intervened on Carpenter’s RBI streak, with a double that scored Xander Bogaerts in the seventh. Carpenter followed Cronenworth to the plate and doubled him home to make it 7-1.
With three victories in the four games here, the Padres won just their second series among the seven they have played this season. In taking the final two games, they scored more than three runs in consecutive games for the first time in two weeks.
There is no need to specify how many games were played in that span, since the Padres just played their 18th game in 18 days.
The schedule now slows down. Precipitously.
The Padres will play just 20 games in the next 25 days and 28 games in the next 36 days.
They will have two days off this week. The first is Monday in Chicago and the second is Friday in Mexico City, where they play the Giants on Saturday and Sunday.
While they have the down time coming, they do take a 3½-hour flight from Mexico City (and its 7,349-foot elevation) to San Diego on Sunday night and begin a three-game series against the Reds the next day.
