Five runs before the third inning
San Diego did its scoring early overnight at Oracle Park. Jackson Merrill drove a two-run double the other way off Logan Webb in the first, and the Padres never trailed again. Manny Machado added a two-run homer to left in the second, his 27th of the year, and the lead was 5-0 before Webb had recorded six outs.
Webb fell to 8-9 on the season, a record that tells you more about the Giants’ run support than about his arm. San Francisco has now lost three straight at home to a division rival chasing the same October slot.
Fernando Tatis Jr. finished with three hits, two runs and two RBIs. His fourth-inning single brought home Ethan Salas, who had tripled moments earlier for his first major league hit in his sixteenth at-bat. The 6-2 margin at that stage was the one that held up.
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San Francisco kept coming, never quite arrived
Andrew Knizner answered Machado in the bottom of the second with a two-run shot off Nick Pivetta. The Giants pulled a run back in the fifth and another in the sixth, that one started by Scott Bandura, who opened the inning with an infield single in his major league debut and came round on a Christian Koss base hit.
That made it 6-4 with nine outs left and a bullpen already warm. San Diego closed it without giving the crowd a ninth-inning reason to stay.
The streak and the standings
Seven straight wins is San Diego’s longest run of the season, and the timing matters more than the number. The Padres leave San Francisco 2.5 games clear of Arizona in the wild card race and within range of climbing further up the National League table.
This is a team that spent August trading blows with the Rays and losing series it should have taken. Three games at Oracle Park, three wins, and the schedule from here stops looking like a problem to survive.
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