CINCINNATI — Just another great day at Great American Ball Park for the Padres.
Another big inning, another victory over the major leagues’ worst team.
It was a fine three-day stay in Ohio for the Padres, who used a four-run sixth inning to beat the Reds 7-5 on Thursday afternoon and complete a sweep of the six-game season series.
It was the first sweep of a season series of six games or more for the Padres since they went 6-0 against the Pirates in 2010.
Manny Machado was 4-for-5 and drove in a run, Eric Hosmer had his major league-leading 10th multi-hit game, and Ha-seong Kim was 3-for-4 with two doubles, one of which cleared loaded bases in the sixth.
The Reds, who are 3-16, led at the end of two of the 51 innings in the six games against the Padres over the past 11 days. Neither lead lasted more than 10 minutes.
The Padres’ sixth-inning outburst Thursday came after the Reds had taken a 2-1 lead against Padres starter Nick Martinez in the bottom of the fifth.
Machado led-off the sixth with a double. With one out, Reds starter Tyler Mahle pitched around Hosmer with a four-pitch walk. Tony Santillan entered the game and hit Matt Beaty to load the bases before Jorge Alfaro tied the game with a sacrifice fly.
Santillan then nicked CJ Abrams’ back foot with a pitch to re-load the bases before the Padres finally hit a ball Tommy Pham could not catch.
Pham had ended the first two innings by running more than 90 feet to make sliding catches near the left-field line. Each time, the Padres had two runners on.
This time, Kim laced a sinking liner to left field that went under the glove of Pham as he dived toward the gap in left-center. The ball rolled to the wall as the bases emptied to put the Padres up 5-2.
The other time the Reds led the Padres at the end of an inning was the second inning Tuesday. The Padres tied that game 1-1 in the top of the third and scored eight runs in the fourth.
They also scored four runs in the third inning of Wednesday’s game.
What they did Thursday in the sixth put Martinez in line for his first win with the Padres, which he was able to celebrate even after two of the four relievers who followed him gave up runs.
Martinez was more efficient for four innings than he had been in any of his first three starts. He had runners on base in three of those innings, but a pair of double play grounders helped keep his pitch total at 59. That was fewer than he had thrown to that point in any game.
And by the fifth, Nabil Crismatt was warming up in the bullpen beyond the right-field fence as the reds scored twice on two doubles and a single.
Martinez threw 27 pitches in that inning and for the fourth time did not make it to the sixth.
But he was the winner and the Padres improved to 12-8, because their offense was more prolific here than it had been in the 17 games that preceded this trip.
The Padres had not scored more than three runs in an inning since the season’s fourth game and did it every game here. They had scored more than six runs just two games and did it every game here. They just twice had five or more runners reach safely in an inning, and they did it once in every game here.
For all the concentrated scoring, their ability to tack on runs the past two games enabled the Padres to win despite the sudden leaks in the bullpen and defense.
Alfaro’s bases-loaded walk brought in a run in the seventh, and Kim scored following his leadoff double in the eighth when Machado singled.
The Reds scored twice off Tim Hill in the seventh, thanks in part to his throwing error. They added one off Luis Garcia in the eighth when Kyle Farmer reached on a CJ Abrams’ fielding error, advanced to third on pitches Garcia bounced past Alfaro, and scored on Brandon Drury’s single.
Taylor Rogers earned his second save in two nights and eighth of the season with a scoreless ninth inning.
