SAN FRANCISCO -- Without his three best relievers on Monday night, Padres manager Bob Melvin watched other choices walk the Padres to a crushing loss. A night later, Melvin watched his All-Star closer do it.
The Giants won their ninth straight and completed yet another comeback when Josh Hader walked Joc Pederson with two outs and the bases loaded in the ninth. The 4-3 win got the Giants to nine games above .500 and allowed them to pick up a full game on the first-place Diamondbacks.
The latest winning rally started with a Luis Matos walk with one out in the ninth. After Patrick Bailey lined a single the other way, Melvin called for Hader. The Giants countered with Casey Schmitt, who had one walk all season entering this series but drew his second ninth-inning walk in two days. After a strikeout, Pederson also took a free pass, giving the Giants another win on a night when they trailed nearly the entire game.
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Fernando Tatis Jr. reached in his first three at-bats and hit a homer in the fifth that gave the Padres a 3-1 lead, but the Giants once again crept back in the late innings. They lead the Majors in runs from the seventh inning on, and they nearly broke the game open once it hit the seventh.
A walk and two singles loaded the bases with no outs, but Manny Machado made an athletic play to turn two on a Patrick Bailey grounder to third. Machado stepped on the base and then made a perfect throw home for a second out. The Giants did manage a run, as Brandon Crawford bounced a single up the middle, and they would soon tie it.
Pederson had just one thing in mind as he strolled up in the bottom of the eighth, and when Nick Martinez grooved a cutter, Pederson hit a moonshot to right. The blast was his eighth of the season.
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Platoon Superstar
In the ninth inning Monday, the Giants sent Austin Slater up to pinch-hit, knowing it would get Tim Hill out of the game. When Hill got the seventh on Tuesday, Slater did get a chance to face him after replacing Michael Conforto.
Slater drew a leadoff walk, continuing an incredible run against left-handed pitchers. He's now faced 33 of them and reached base 17 times, with 15 hits and two walks. He's also faring well against righties, and through 22 games, he has a .423 average and .464 on-base percentage. Right now, he's one of the best specialists in the National League.
The Rookies
If Matos' career goes the way everyone hopes, Seth Lugo might one day be a trivia question. Matos had no strikeouts through his first 21 plate appearances in the big leagues, but Lugo got him swinging in the second with a nasty curveball that broke down and away from the rookie outfielder. Matos bounced back quickly, getting a single in his third at-bat and then drawing that big walk in the ninth. He ended up being the game-winning run.
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The best rookie on this night was Tristan Beck, who just about duplicated Keaton Winn's huge performance from a night earlier.
Beck threw three shutout innings to keep the Giants in the game, ending his night by blowing 95 mph past Trent Grisham with a runner on.
Lots Of Action
The hits column -- eight in five innings -- would indicate Anthony DeSclafani had a rough night. The walks (one) and strikeouts (six) would point to a good night. In the end, he met in the middle.
DeSclafani struck out four of the first seven Padres but then had plenty of traffic behind him in his final three innings. He ended up getting charged with three earned runs.
