Pitchers duel at Petco helps Padres avoid sweep.  Greg Maddux was vintage this evening working his was through seven innings on 69 pitches.  Retiring the Cubs first nine batters in a row before allowing a hit in the 4^th inning. 

Ted Lilly had a solid showing allowing only two runs over 7 and 1/3 innings.  Lilly was using the spacious outfield at Petco to his advantage.  After allowing a solo HR to Scott Hairston (8) to lead off the game the Padres hit numerous deep drives that simply died in the outfield.  The Padres wouldn’t regain the lead until the bottom of the eight off of reliever Carlos Marmol (run was charged to Lilly). 

The Padres couldn’t seem to provide Maddux with enough run support again tonight.  On three occasions men were left standing at third waiting for a clutch hit to drive them in. 

Brian Giles reached base three times on this evening, hitting three deep drives to center, two which dropped in for doubles.  Giles did lead off the 8^th inning with one of those such drives.  Adrian Gonzalez was able to hit a deep fly ball to left center that was flagged down by Alfonso Soriano; Giles was able to tag up from second to third.  Kevin Kouzmanoff then hit a sacrifice fly to deep center scoring Giles from third and giving the Padres a 2-1 lead.

Trevor Hoffman came in to start off the 9^th sending Mike Fontenot and Soriano down on strikes before allowing a base hit to Ryan Theriot.  The go ahead run in Derrek Lee came up to bat however on this evening the Padres would not be denied as Trevor struck out Lee on that famous change up; giving Hoffman his 12^th save of the year and snapping the Cubs win steak at 9.

Josh Banks will try to cool off a hot New York Mets team that has won seven of it’s last 10.  The Padres will host the Mets in a four game series starting tonight.

 The MLB 2008 First-Year player draft will take place in Florida this afternoon.  The Padres will select 23^rd in the first round.  They also hold picks #42, #46, #69, #101 and #111 in the first three rounds. 

In the first of a three game series against the visiting Washington Nationals, Randy Wolf put together yet another solid outing.  Wolf was hit hard in the first inning, giving up a two run home run to Aaron Boone.  Wolf was able to settle down after that and throw 5 scoreless innings, striking out five and not allowing a walk.

At the plate, the Padres hitters were patient.  Nationals starter Shawn Hill walked three consecutive Padres in the 3rd inning, loading the bases for Michael Barrett.  Barrett singled, driving in two runs to tie the game at two.

The game would stay tied until the 7th inning when Adrian Gonzalez came up to bat.  Gonzalez hit an opposite field home run (15) off Lefty Charlie Manning.  Kevin Kouzmanoff would follow that hitting a first pitch fast ball out of left field giving the Friars a 4-2 lead.

Heath Bell threw a scoreless 1 1/3 innings and held the lead for future Hall of Famer Trevor Hoffman.  Trevor had no problem with the National hitters, sitting them down one, two, three for his 10th save of the season and 534th career save. 

*As a note after the game, Channel 4 reported that Padres pitcher Jared Wells was traded to Seattle for pitcher Cha Seung Baek.

The San Diego Padres evened the series with the Chicago Cubs as they beat the Cubs 4-3 on a cold rainy night at Wrigley Field in Chicago.  No runs were scored after the fourth inning, and all four of the Padres runs came in the fourth inning.  Before that they were down 3-0.

Khalil Greene had a two run home run to lead the Padres at the plate.  He took Cubs starting pitcher Jason Marquis deep.  Jody Gerut then doubled to score two more runs.  Those two hits were all the Padres would end up needing to win the game.

Shawn Estes pitched 5 1/3 innings to pick up the win which was his first of the season.  Trevor Hoffman pitched a 1-2-3 ninth inning to get the save in the game.

Padres Blog

The San Diego Padres beat the Houston Astros on Thursday to improve their record to 3-1 on the young season.  It was a two run homerun by Kevin Kouzmanoff that was the big hit of the ballgame.   When Kouzmanoff hit his homerun, it gave the Padres a one run lead in the first inning.

The Astros did battle back to tie up the ballgame in the 7th inning, Tadahito Iguchi singled in Scott Hairston for the go ahead and winning run.

Randy Wolf pitched six strong innings for the Padres.  He only allowed four hits, one earned run, and had five strikeouts.

Trevor Hoffman was able to secure his second save of the season.  It was nice to see after he blew the save on Wednesday.