Miguel Tejada singled in the tying and go-ahead runs in the seventh inning as the San Diego Padres slipped into the wild card lead in the National League with a 4-3 victory over the Cincinnati Reds on Friday.
Mike Baxter added a sacrifice fly and Will Venable had two hits and scored two runs for the Padres, who moved one-half game in front of the Atlanta Braves in the wild card race and remained one-half game behind the San Francisco Giants in the NL West.
San Diego led 2-1 after Baxter’s sacrifice fly in the fifth but watched that lead slip away in the top of the sixth when Chris Young was lifted in favor of Ryan Webb. Scott Rolen led off with a single against Webb and moved to third on a throwing error before scoring the tying run on Ramon Hernandez’s infield single.
Miguel Cairo added the go-ahead run two batters later to make it 3-2 in favor of Cincinnati.
But the Reds bullpen - a soft spot all season - could not hold the lead. Arthur Rhodes (4-4) allowed a single and walked a batter while recording one out before yielding to Nick Masset, who walked David Eckstein and then allowed Tejada’s two-run single to left on a 3-2 pitch.
Luke Gregerson (4-7) was credited with the win and Heath Bell worked the ninth for his 44th save.
Cincinnati | San Diego | |
Bronson Arroyo | Player | Chris Young |
No Decision | W/L | No Decision |
5.0 | IP | 5.0 |
3 | Strikeouts | 1 |
5 | Hits | 3 |
3.60 | ERA | 1.80 |
Cincinnati | San Diego | |
Miguel Cairo | Player | Miguel Tejada |
1 | Hits | 2 |
1 | RBI | 3 |
0 | HR | 0 |
1 | TB | 2 |
1.000 | Avg | .500 |
Team | Hits | HR | TB | Avg | LOB | K | RBI | BB | SB | Errors |
Cincinnati | 8 | 1 | 11 | .235 | 18 | 5 | 3 | 3 | 0 | 0 |
San Diego | 7 | 0 | 7 | .233 | 13 | 5 | 4 | 4 | 2 | 1 |