SAN DIEGO — The San Diego Padres limped home Thursday night with the goal of simply not stumbling into the All-Star break.
The right team was in town for the weekend, the right pitchers were on the mound.
The Diamondbacks don’t win much at Petco Park nor hit much against Yu Darvish. The Padres have mostly feasted on Madison Bumgarner the past few seasons.
In a rare turn of events, all went pretty much accordingly in a 5-3 victory Friday.
Arizona scored three times as many runs off Darvish as they did in two previous games against him this season — on Ketel Marte’s solo home run in the first inning and Christian Walker’s two-run homer in the fourth — but he finished seven innings with no further damage.
Nick Martinez and Taylor Rogers pitched an inning apiece to close out the Padres’ second victory in seven games and just their 10th in the last 27.
And even as they squandered early opportunities to make it a much easier outcome, the Padres patiently pounded Bumgarner. The left-hander allowed five runs in five innings and has a 6.38 ERA in nine starts against them since joining the Diamondbacks in 2020.
Luke Voit reached on an error to begin the bottom of the second, and a single by Ha-Seong Kim and Austin Nola’s two-run double put the Padres up 2-1. Nomar Mazara’s single was followed by Esteury Ruiz’s single, which scored Nola. Jurickson Profar’s walk loaded the bases with one out.
Bumgarner had thrown 31 pitches in the inning.
Three pitches later, Arizona catcher Carson Kelly picked off Mazara at third base. And Jake Cronenworth watched the pitch after that for strike three.
The Padres continued to hit in the next inning.
Singles by Manny Machado, Voit and Kim produced a run in the third, and Eric Hosmer’s walk loaded the bases with no outs. Nola grounded into a double play that scored Voit before Mazara grounded out.
Thursday’s loss in Colorado was the Padres’ third in a row and dropped them to nine games above .500, the closest they had been to even since June 2.
The perfect opponent awaited. The Diamondbacks entered Friday having lost five straight and 15 of their past 20 games in San Diego.
