The Arizona Diamondbacks knew they were up for a challenge when the San Diego Padres came to town. Winners of 8 of their last 10 games, the Padres looked to take 9 of their last 10 against the Diamondbacks. With Eric Stults on the mound (6-2, 2.56 ERA), their chances were looking pretty good.
The game began with an odd turn of events when Everth Cabrera hit a deep fly ball to center field. Chris Young traveled back towards the wall and made the grab, but appeared to injure himself in the process. Gerardo Parra promptly replaced him and Adam Eaton shifted to center field. According to many reports, Young re-aggravated his quadriceps.
Ian Kennedy seemed somewhat affected by the odd sequence of events. He proceeded to give up a hit to Logan Forsythe and allowed Chase Headley to walk with just one out. Yasmani Grandal's infield base hit loaded up the bases. A sacrifice fly to left field from Yonder Alonso gave the Padres a quick 1-0 lead.
Paul Goldschmidt knotted the game at one a piece after singling to right field, scoring Adam Eaton from second base. With Goldschmidt on first, Miguel Montero followed with a gapper to right field, sending Goldy all the way around and giving the D-Backs a 2-1 lead. All of the Diamondbacks' scoring in the first inning was accomplished with two outs.
Although he got his pitch count up fairly early, Kennedy managed to slow the game down after the first inning. The bad news for Arizona was that Eric Stults was able to mirror Kennedy at every turn. There were no runs scored from the second through the fourth inning.
In the bottom of the fifth, Montero hit his second double of the game, this one off the wall in center field. That double plated Justin Upton all the way from first base, giving the Diamondbacks a comfortable 3-1 lead.
A single and error to start the ninth put a little scare into the Diamondbacks. With Chris Denorfia on third, Will Venable managed to hit a sac fly, plating Denorfia and making the score 3-2 with D-Backs closer J.J. Putz on the mound. That would be all San Diego would get, though, as Putz ran through the rest of the batters with ease, giving the Diamondbacks a win and Kennedy his 14th win of the season.
Kennedy lasted 8 innings, giving up 7 hits, 1 earned run, walking two and striking out six. His ERA now stands at a respectable 4.08. He hurled a total of 121 pitches in the game.
Arizona has now won 2 of their last 10 games against the Padres and will look to continue their streak on Wednesday night with Trevor Cahill on the mound.