SAN FRANCISCO — Monday night was progressing toward a familiar finish between the Padres and Giants at Oracle Park.
And then it wasn’t, as the Padres turned things around quickly against Logan Webb with three runs in the seventh inning and held on for a 4-1 victory.
Now they are on the verge of something truly rare.
The win — and a loss by the Dodgers to the Angels — moved the Padres to within a game of the Dodgers in the National League West, a division the Padres have not won since 2006 and have not led this late in a season since 2010.
Padres players were interested in what happened in Anaheim, but they were more interested in what they had done in winning for thw 12th time in their past 15 games.
“Of course, we see it, but we’re playing our own game, not really trying to think about it right now,” Jackson Merrill said. “Just play our own game and it’ll come.”
San Diego Padres’ Freddy Fermin, right, is congratulated by Fernando Tatis Jr. (23) after hitting a two-run home run that also scored Jake Cronenworth during the seventh inning of a baseball game against the San Francisco Giants in San Francisco, Monday, Aug. 11, 2025. (AP Photo/Jeff Chiu)
It was Merrill who doubled to break a scoreless tie in the sixth inning before Rafael Devers halted a streak of 10 consecutive batters retired by Yu Darvish with a two-out homer in the bottom of the sixth.
Seven pitches into the seventh inning, the Padres led by three runs.
Gavin Sheets began the inning with a double lined to right field on an 0-2 pitch. With Bryce Johnson pinch-running, Jake Cronenworth broke the 1-1 tie with a single. And on the first pitch he saw, Freddy Fermin drove a sweeper left in the heart of the strike zone down the left field line and just over the wall.
“Webb was early as good as we’ve seen him, and we’ve seen him good,” Padres manager Mike Shildt said. “A lot of times with that guy, you’ve got to get him early. But we talk about geting better as the game goes, and it was case in point there. … Guys stayed with it, stayed with it, stayed with it. And we were able to get to him.”
Jeremiah Estrada took over for Darvish and worked a scoreless seventh. Mason Miller struck out the three batters he faced in the eighth. Robert Suarez then retired the side in order in the ninth.
The three-run margin made for the relatively rare game not decided by one run when the Padres visit Oracle Park. Of the 43 previous games between the teams here since 2020, 21 were decided by a single run. That included all four games they played in June.
Logan Webb #62 of the San Francisco Giants pitches against the San Diego Padres in the top of the first inning at Oracle Park on Aug. 11, 2025 in San Francisco, California. (Photo by Thearon W. Henderson/Getty Images)
Both starting pitchers did their part to make it close Monday.
Of Webb’s first 12 outs, 10 were groundballs. The other two were strikeouts. It took 15 batters for the Padres to put a ball in play that was not on the ground.
After leaving runners at first and second in the fifth, the Padres immediately got a runner in scoring position again in the sixth when Tatis led off by driving a double to the gap in right-center field.
A groundout by Luis Arraez and strikeout by Ryan O’Hearn, sandwiched around a Manny Machado walk, brought Merrill to the plate. And his third hit of the night, a double lined through the right side of the infield, broke the scoreless tie before Bogaerts grounded out to second base to strand the two runners in scoring position.
It was the first run the Padres had scored against Webb at Oracle Park this season after he had shut them out over eight innings on June 2 in a game the Padres won 1-0 in the 10th.
Darvish did not immediately match Webb’s dominance, but his seventh start of the season was a gem.
“I think as the innings went on, I started feeling better and the pitches were coming out better,” said Darvish, who logged his second quality start in his past three outings.
He got through the first inning in eight pitches. He threw nine to the first batter in the second and 34 in all before stranding runners at first and second after a pair of singles.
Darvish got out of the third with help from Merrill throwing out Drew Gilbert at third base after a stolen base and a throw into center field by Fermin, the Padres’ catcher.
San Francisco Giants’ Drew Gilbert (61) is tagged out by San Diego Padres third baseman Manny Machado while trying to reach third base after stealing second base during the third inning of a baseball game in San Francisco, Monday, Aug. 11, 2025. (AP Photo/Jeff Chiu)
A seven-pitch fourth inning followed for Darvish, and he struck out the three batters he faced in the fifth on 16 pitches.
That put him nine shy of his season high, thrown in his second start back on July 12.
He would need just 10 to finish the sixth inning, though his ninth pitch of the inning was the one Devers launched over the wall in left-center field.
Monday was the first of 13 consecutive games against the Giants and Dodgers, who they play this weekend in Los Angeles before hosting them next weekend.
This stretch represents an opportunity to pass the Dodgers and all but extinguish any playoff hopes for the Giants, whose 59-60 record has them 4½ games out of the final wild-card spot with the Reds and Cardinals between them and that spot.
“This is August, September baseball right here at its best,” Sheets said. “You get divisional opponents back-to-back, and then (they) come to our place. It’s gonna be a really good stretch of baseball. I’m excited for it. We’re excited for it. We’re built for this. It’s going to be an exciting two weeks for us.”
Originally Published: August 11, 2025 at 8:45 PM PDT