Joc Pederson, Mike Yastrzemski and J.D. Davis stroked consecutive run-scoring singles in a four-run fifth inning and the San Francisco Giants, after two straight walk-off wins, took the front-running route to a 4-2 victory over the visiting San Diego Padres on Wednesday.
Serving as an opener for the second time in three nights, Ryan Walker led a parade of six Giants pitchers to the mound in an eight-hit effort that produced San Francisco’s 10th straight win.
Padres starter Yu Darvish (5-6) had matched zeros with Walker and bulk-innings reliever Sean Hjelle until singles by Luis Matos and Blake Sabol and a walk to David Villar loaded the bases with no outs in the fifth.
Brandon Crawford’s sacrifice fly opened the scoring, and after Darvish struck out Casey Schmitt for the second out, Pederson, Yastrzemski and Davis came through with their hits that each added one to the lead.
Darvish was pulled after six innings, charged with all four Giants runs on seven hits. He walked two and struck out six.
The Padres got within 4-1 in the seventh on a Trent Grisham RBI single, then 4-2 in the eighth on a Jake Cronenworth sacrifice fly.
A single by Ha-Seong Kim brought the potential tying run to the plate in the ninth against Camilo Doval, but the Giants closer struck out Grisham and got Fernando Tatis Jr. to line out to second baseman Schmitt for his 20th save.
Hjelle (2-1) got the win after throwing four shutout innings, allowing three hits. He walked two and struck out five.
Matos and Sabol had two hits apiece for the Giants, who had taken each of the first two games of the series down to the final at-bat before a Yastrzemski walk-off homer and Pederson walk-off walk ended 7-4 and 4-3 wins, respectively.
San Francisco went 4-for-8 with runners in scoring position on Wednesday.
Grisham, Juan Soto and Manny Machado had two hits each for the Padres, who get a chance to avoid a four-game sweep in an afternoon series finale on Thursday.
Each team had eight hits in a game in which there were only two extra-base hits, doubles by Sabol and Machado.
–Field Level Media