Yu Darvish held Atlanta to a solo homer by Marcell Ozuna over 6 2/3 innings Sunday night and San Diego took advantage of some early wildness by rookie Braves right-hander Bryce Elder to give the Padres a 2-1 victory over visiting Atlanta and a split of their four-game series.
Both Padres runs came in the second. Infielders Ha-Seong Kim and C.J. Abrams, the Padres’ No. 8-9 hitters, started the rally with back-to-back singles with one out.
Elder then walked Trent Grisham on four pitches to load the bases and hit Austin Nola with a pitch to force home the Padres first run. Abrams scored when Jake Cronenworth beat the relay on a possible double-play grounder to short.
Coming off one of the worst performances of his career, Darvish held the Braves to the one run on four hits and no walks with eight strikeouts. In San Francisco on Tuesday, Darvish gave up nine runs on eight hits and two walks in 1 2/3 innings.
Darvish, who didn’t allow a hit but walked four over six innings on Opening Day on April 7, shut out the Braves on Sunday until Ozuna led off the seventh with his fourth homer of the season, a low liner into the left-field stands.
Before that, the Braves threatened only once. Matt Olson doubled leading off the fourth, and Darvish hit Austin Riley with a pitch. Darvish then retired Ozuna on an infield fly, got Travis d’Arnaud to fly out to right and retired Alex Dickerson on a grounder to first baseman Eric Hosmer.
After Adam Duvall doubled off Darvish with two out in the seventh, reliever Steven Wilson came on and got the last out of the inning.
Luis Garcia retired Atlanta on three straight grounders in the eighth. Taylor Rogers struck out two in a perfect ninth for his fourth save — becoming the first closer in Padres history to get a save in each of his first four appearances.
Elder gave up the two runs on three hits and five walks with three strikeouts in 4 1/3 innings. Elder loaded the bases with one out in the first on a pair of walks and a fielder’s choice grounder before getting out of trouble on a pair of infield pops.
Spencer Strider took over for Elder and worked 3 2/3 hitless innings with three walks and three strikeouts.
–Field Level Media