San Diego Padres’ Juan Soto, right, celebrates with third base coach Matt Williams after hitting a home run during the first inning against the San Francisco Giants at Petco Park in San Diego on Fri Sep 1, 2023 (AP News photo)

By Barbara Mason

The San Diego Padres (63-73) turned the tables on the San Francisco Giants (70-65) with a 7-3 win on Friday night at Petco Park in San Diego. The Giants clobbered the Padres on Thursday night 7-2 in game one of the series.

The Giants were the first team up on the scoreboard when Wilmer Flores hit a solo home run in the first inning for a 1-0 lead.

The Padres answered in not only the bottom of the first inning but in the second and third innings. Fernando Tatis Jr. hit a two-run home run followed by a Juan Soto solo home run in the first inning taking a 3-1 lead and San Diego was off and running.

The Padres added another run in the second inning taking a 4-1 lead. Trent Grisham singled Luis Campusano home. San Diego did not take their foot off the pedal scoring a couple more runs in the third inning extending their lead to 6-1.

San Francisco started to make a bit of noise scoring one run in the fourth inning when Brandon Crawford sacrificed and Patrick Bailey scored. The score now stood at 6-2 and the Giants were hoping to get their offense in this game going.

Through six innings they had six hits and they did load the bases in the sixth inning with 2 outs and were looking at a golden opportunity to tighten up this game. The Giants were unable to take advantage and add a few more runs to the score and the 6-2 score remained going into the bottom of the sixth. Leaving these runners stranded in the sixth could possibly have a lot to do with the outcome of this game.

San Diego added another run in the bottom of the sixth when Thairo Estrada had a fielding error and Tatis Jr. scored from third base. The Padres now led 7-2.

San Francisco was struggling on the mound from the start. Tristan Beck went 2.2 innings and gave up nine hits (two of them home runs) and six runs with no strikeouts. Alex Wood would relieve Beck in the third inning allowing 3 hits and no runs. He had at least stopped the bleeding through the next three innings.

This game would go into the eighth inning with San Diego still leading 7-2 and San Francisco was down to two innings left to make a move in this game. They were running out of time.

The Giants got something going in the ninth inning. Estrada singled followed by a Crawford single and San Francisco had two runners on base with no outs. Pinch hitter Blake Sabol was hit by a pitch and once again the Giants had the bases loaded.

The next at bat LaMonte Wade Jr. was also hit and the Padres walked in a run. San Diego was having a heck of a time closing out this game. After the walk-in run, the Padres pulled a double play and finished off this game 7-3

Giants post game notes: Thursday night the Giants decisively beat the Padres by the score of 7-2. San Francisco led 7-0 going into the bottom of the eighth inning. The Giants put out a great offensive effort and couldn’t get anymore of that same run production as they had in Thursday’s game in Friday night’s game two. The Padres on the other hand were looking for some payback and it was looking much like Thursday night’s game, the only caveat was that it was the Padres this time who took the early lead and after three innings had a 6-1 lead.

In Saturday’s game three the Giants will have two left-handers going at each other. Kyle Harrison will take the mound for San Francisco after a solid game in his debut at Oracle last Monday night. He was dominant in that game striking out the first five batters he faced. He’s 1-0 and ERA is 1.86. The Padres are going with Blake Snell with a 11-9 win/loss record and a 2.60 ERA. First pitch is scheduled for 5:40 PM.