SAN FRANCISCO — The Padres arrived in Los Angeles on Wednesday evening in first place.
Their chartered flight touched down at LAX with them holding a half-game lead over the Dodgers in the National League West.
Depending on how the Dodgers fare against the Angels in Anaheim later Wednesday, the Padres will either lead the division by a game or be tied when a three-game series begins Friday at Dodger Stadium.
An 11-1 rout of the Giants on Wednesday afternoon, which completed a three-game sweep at Oracle Park, assured the Padres of that.
“It’s huge,” Fernando Tatis Jr. said. “That’s what we’re playing for. Now, we’ve got to take a lead in first place and stay consistent. And this is the team to do it. It’s now a matter of fact. It’s in our hands how much we want it.”
It was Tuesday’s victory that got them even with the Dodgers, who led the division by nine games on July 3.
The start of a 13-game stretch in which the Padres will play only the Giants and Dodgers could not have gone much better. The goal for the two-week period is to catch the Dodgers and bury the Giants, and they may have already accomplished the latter.
The Giants are a season-low three games under .500 (59-62) and six games out of playoff position.
They will be at Petco Park for four games beginning Monday before the Padres host the Dodgers for three.
“It’s division, right?” Manny Machado said when asked about the significance of sweeping the Giants. “I mean, they’re in the hunt for the last wild-card spot. You can never count them out. So we come in here and try to play our best baseball. Just can’t take it for granted. These next two weeks are, you know, it’s a tough one. So we can’t let off.”
On Wednesday, the Padres put away their fifth straight victory early. They did so with their biggest inning in more than three months.
Their seven-run second inning included three walks, a two-run single that caromed off a bag, one run scoring on a throwing error and another on a passed ball.
The Padres sent 11 batters to the plate and faced two pitchers in the inning.
Jake Cronenworth drove in the first two runs when his bases-loaded grounder up the middle bounced off the corner of second base and away from shortstop Willy Adames.
Elías Díaz followed with the third walk of the inning to re-load the bases before Tatis grounded another two-run single up the middle and into center field.
Luis Arraez’s fly ball to center field scored Ramón Laureano, who had drawn a 10-pitch walk in front of Cronenworth. A double by Machado would have merely moved Tatis to third, but left fielder Heliot Ramos held onto the ball as he went to throw it in and instead threw it almost directly into the grass. Tatis continued running home.
That was the end of the day for Giants starter Kai-Wei Teng.
Jackson Merrill hit reliever Spencer Bivens’ first pitch through the left side, moving Machado to third. Then, Machado scored when Bivens’ next pitch sailed high and caromed off catcher Patrick Bailey’s glove.
The Giants would use five relievers in all, including infielder Christian Koss in the ninth, while Nick Pivetta allowed just one run in 6⅔ innings before Wandy Peralta got one out and Yuki Matsui got six.
The biggest problem for Pivetta was waiting out long innings.
Things got tense for him just once, and that was just slightly and for just a bit.
Pitching coach Ruben Niebla was compelled to visit the mound after the Giants loaded the bases with two outs in the third inning. Pivetta needed just five pitches to get Dominic Smith to fly out to center field, ending the inning.
The Padres scored three more runs in the fifth inning on doubles by Xander Bogaerts and Ryan O’Hearn and a home run by Laureano, all with one out.
They made it 11-0 in the seventh on singles by Laureano, Cronenworth and Tatis.
Pivetta was two outs away from completing seven scoreless innings for the fifth time this season when he allowed his fourth hit of the day, a triple by Jung Hoo Lee, and a sacrifice fly.
Pivetta settled for his 12th game going at least 6 innings while allowing no more than one run on a day that was relatively easy considering the cushion he was working with.
“When a team gives you a lead like that, it’s a really big gift,” Pivetta said. “You’re able to just kind of go about your business and just stay away from the bigger innings, which we were able to. It got a little hairy there in the fourth but was able to execute there and then kind of move on.”
Then, it was on to Los Angeles.
Originally Published: August 13, 2025 at 2:32 PM PDT