Adrian Gonzalez made things interesting in the bottom of the ninth inning when he hit a three run home run off of Chicago Cubs relief pitcher Carlos Marmol.  Too bad for the Padres, that only got them to within one run, and Michael Barrett flew out to deep left field to end the game.  The Padres ended up losing to the Cubs by the score of 7-6.

Gonzalez led the Padres as he went 3-4 with four rbi in the game.  Gonzalez now has 17 home runs and 54 rbi on the season.  Kevin Kouzmanoff also had two rbi in the game for the Padres.  The Padres had jumped out to a 3-0 lead after the first inning, but the middle inning all belonged to the Cubs.

Cha Seung Baek fell to 1-1 on the season as he took the loss on against the Cubs.  Baek pitched 4 1/3 innings while giving up nine hits and four runs.  He was hit pretty hard, and in another ballpark, I’m sure the Cubs would have hit a couple of home runs off of him.  Justin Hampson pitched an inning of relief after Baek left the game and he gave up two quick runs.  After Hampson left, Mike Adams gave up one run while pitching 2 2/3 innings.  Carlos Guevara was finally able to pitch a scoreless ninth inning for the bullpen.

The Padres will try to slow down the Cubs who will be going for their ninth win in a row on Tuesday night.  It will be Wilfredo Ledezma and Jason Marquis taking the mound.

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Shawn Estes has been close to perfect since being inserted back into the starting rotation.  However a wild 4^th inning seemed to doom him and the Padres.  In the top of the 4^th inning Estes seemed to loose control of his curve ball, with men on 1^st and 2^nd Estes threw two consecutive wild pitches followed by a third that hit batter Lastings Milledge loading the bases for Jesus Flores.  Flores jumped on a 1-2 fastball and sent it out of left field for a grand slam (2) and also giving the Nationals a 4-0 lead.

Odalis Perez seemed to have great control over the Padre lineup.  The Padres were able to hit the ball well, however well placed National players had no problem running down deep shots the warning track.  The Padres missed timely hitting stranding one runner in the first and two runners in the 3^rd inning.

In the 5^th inning Tadahito Iguchi was able to score Jody Gerut on a broken bat blooper however that would be the end of the scoring as Brian Giles was retired with two men on board.

Mike Adams came in to relief Estes in the 6^th and promptly gave up a solo home run to Lastings Milledge (3) giving the Nats a 5-1 lead.

In the 7^th the Nationals Felipe Lopez hit a double to center, Cristian Guzman singled to right and Aaron Boone was able to score Lopez on a sacrifice fly to give the Nats a 6-1 lead.

In the bottom of the 7^th inning the swinging friars came to life with Luke Carlin and Tony Clark hit back to back doubles to bring the Padres within range.  Scott Harriston was hitting the ball hard all night and connected for a two run homerun (7) scoring Clark and making the score 6-4.  Iguchi then singled to right and Adrian Gonzalez was hit by a pitch to bring the go ahead run in Kevin Kouzmanoff up to the plate.  However Nats pitcher Luis Ayala was able to hand Kouzmanoff his third strike out of the evening and putting to rest the Padres rally.

Ayala and Jon Rauch were able to sit down the last six Padre batters in a row to give the Nationals the 6-4 win.

Note: Justin Huber started in left field, however he was pulled after the first inning suffering from back spasms.

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The San Diego Padres got off to a good start in a four game series against the Cincinnati Reds as they beat them 8-2 on Monday night.  The Padres got a great starting pitching performance out of Randy Wolf and then two home runs from Khalil Greene in the game.

Wolf tossed seven good innings to pick up the win and improve to 3-4 on the season.  Wolf only allowed four hits and two runs in the game.  Both runs came in the first inning when he made a mistake pitch to Ken Griffey Jr. who hit a two run home run.  Other then that, Wolf was pretty damn good on Thursday night!

Mike Adams came in and pitched the final two innings of the game and only allowed one hit.  Good job by Adams for getting the job done in the late innings.

Greene led the Padres at the plate with two home runs and two rbi.  Adrian Gonzalez and Kevin Kouzmanoff also had two rbi each in the game.  Gonzalez’s rbi’s came on a two run home run.  Brian Giles and Wolf both had one rbi as there was a lot if production up and down the Padres lineup against the Reds.

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