Aybar, Pirela homer in Padres’ victory
SAN DIEGO — The rebuilding San Diego Padres won’t reach the postseason this year, and maybe not for the next few years.
They’re got this, though — three straight September wins against the runaway NL West-leading Los Angeles Dodgers, who continue to have the best record in the majors but have lost eight of nine in their worst stretch of the year.
Erick Aybar hit a go-ahead, tworun homer and Jose Pirela also went deep off Alex Wood as the Padres beat the Dodgers 6-4 Sunday. San Diego took the final three games of the four-game series, including a doubleheader sweep Saturday.
“The guys are resilient,” manager Andy Green said. “They’ve been that way all year. They believe in each other. They’ve played good baseball for an extended period of time after starting the season 15-30. You don’t get the luxury of being a championship team by X-ing out the first month and a half, but we’re taking steps in the right direction.”
The Padres got seven strong innings from Jhoulys Chacin, who said the three straight wins against the Dodgers can’t be understated.
“Huge,” the right-hander said. “I think that’s what Andy wants to see from us, is this late in the season, when the Dodgers are getting ready for the playoffs, and they come here and we take three out of four. We pitched real well today. The only game we lost was 1-0 against (Clayton) Kershaw. That wasn’t that bad.”
San Diego won three straight against Los Angeles for the first time since June 2013. Although they’re buried in fourth in the NL West, 30 ½ games behind LA, the Padres won’t have the super bad season many expected. They’re 62-75, and the Dodgers are 92-44.
The Dodgers return home for a three-game series starting Monday against Arizona, which swept them in Phoenix last week.
“I think it’s a statistical improbability to go an entire season without really getting punched in the face at any time,” said Wood (14-2), who was activated from the disabled
list and made his first start since Aug. 21. “It’s kind of one of those things where we’ve been so good for so long that we have a rough patch for a week and it’s like, ‘Oh my God, what’s going on?’ It happens to everybody. The best teams in the world this happens to. We’ve just got to keep our heads down and keep playing the baseball that we’re supposed to, and we’ll come out of it and be fine.”
Cody Bellinger hit his 36th home run to break Mike Piazza’s Dodgers rookie record, set in 1993. It came with one out in the ninth off All-Star closer Brad Hand, who got his 15th save.
“It feels great,” he said. “To be in the same sentence as Piazza was awesome, and to now pass him, it feels pretty special. It’s a team game so hopefully we get out of this and start winning some games again.”
Aybar’s shot to left-center in the fourth gave San Diego a 3-2 lead. His seventh, it followed Matt Szczur’s leadoff double. Pirela homered into the second deck in left with one out in the fifth, his 10th.