Padres 5, Dbacks 1: Erlin Excels in Edinson's Place

Tonight our Padres will board a plane to Los Angeles, where they will spend their off day tomorrow before their series against the Dodgers. In order to make that flight a happy one, they had to salvage the series finale at Chase Field. And with some fantastic pitching performances and a couple of offensive bursts, they were able to do just that.

San Diego got the scoring started right off the bat (pun intended) with a leadoff single by Chris Denorfia on the second pitch of the game from Arizona starter Wade Miley. Will Venable (of course) followed with a line drive double to center field to score Deno. He remained at second base while Jedd Gyorko and Yonder Alonso recorded two outs. Then Jesus Guzman brought him home with a line drive single to right to give the Padres an early 2-0 lead.

Robbie Erlin's return to the big league rotation was an impressive one. He retired the first five Diamondbacks in order before allowing a single to Willie Bloomquist, who then proceeded to steal second. But Erlin eliminated the threat and got out of the inning unscathed. The lefty ended his night after six innings of work, having allowed just one run on six hits. That run came in the bottom of the 6th when Erlin ran into a bit of trouble. With two outs, he walked Eric Chavez and then allowed a single to Aaron Hill. After a coaching visit at the mound, Erlin still couldn't get that last out. Bloomquist notched his third hit of the day, an RBI single to Chris Denorfia in right field, to put the Dbacks on the board at last. Finally Erlin got Gerardo Parra to ground out to end the inning, and his night. All in all, Erlin's six-hit six-inning performance was a welcome sight after the young southpaw's struggles on the road this season.

Tim Stauffer came in to pitch the 7th inning. He allowed back-to-back 1-out singles, but the runners would be left on base as Stauffer became Stawesome and recorded the next two outs.

In the 8th inning, our Padres blew the game open against their former teammate, Heath Bell. Ezekiel couldn't help the Cartographer as he allowed three straight hits to start the inning. First a single to Deno, his second of the game. Then he allowed Venable to notch his second hit of the game and his 20th home run of the season, a bomb to right field to increase San Diego's lead to three runs. Gyorko followed with a single, but was thrown out when Yonder Alonso grounded into a double play. Guzman was bummed because he really wanted that third run to come home that inning, so he took matters into his own hands and homered to center field on the first pitch he saw.

Stauffer threw another shutout inning and then the Padres were retired in order in the top of the 9th by Eury De La Rosa. Bud Black gave the ball to Huston Street in the bottom of the 9th for the non-save situation. He allowed a two-out double to A.J. Pollock, but then got Eaton to fly out to end the game.

Overall it was a solid effort on both sides of the ball. It was another marvelous outing for Venable, which we've now come to expect over the past month, but the real key in tonight's victory was the pitching. It was great to see Erlin back on the team and pitching like the number 15 pitching prospect he is, and the bullpen team of Stauffer and Street did a marvelous job in the final three innings.

Again, our Padres will be off tomorrow because for some reason someone thought five off days in August would be a good idea. But they'll be back at it against our NL West rival just up the 5 at Chavez Ravine on Friday.

Like Venable and Denorfia with the Padres offense tonight, Ron Mexico and Ivan Verastica carried the GLB offense in the game thread with 38 and 34 comments, respectively. Gaslamp Ballers as a whole started out strong in the beginning, tapered off and died down in the middle innings, and then rallied at the end.