SAN DIEGO – With a ‘nasty’ start from Nestor Cortes and patiently effective hitting, the San Diego Padres retook the lead in the NL West with a 5-1 win over the Los Angeles Dodgers on Saturday night at Petco Park.

Cortes confounded the Los Angeles (73-57) hitters, retiring a career-high 16 batters in a row to open the game. Then San Diego (74-56) gave him three runs to work with in the fourth inning, highlighted by Ramón Laureano’s two-RBI single.

“I think the pitch mix was the x-factor for me. Being in the league for five or six years now guys know what I want to do, guys know my attack plan (and) strengths, I feel like when I’m able to mix well real well and make sure everybody knows I’m going to work both sides of the plate, that’s what gives me the advantage,” Cortes said.

Then in the eighth inning the Padres poured it on with Xander Bogaerts delivering a two-out, two-RBI double against reliever Justin Wrobleski and cashing in a lead off walk to Fernando Tatis Jr. and an intentional walk to Manny Machado. Four of the five San Diego runs scored came from a player that reached on a free pass, as they worked six walks.

“We’ve gotten really good starting pitching… there’s a lot of different recipes, tonight was another one, but the last two nights when you get six out of your starter and then you’re able to take a lead, go to your guys and add on, that recipe usually tastes the best,” manager Mike Shildt said.

The Dodgers got their run in the eighth inning when Alex Freeland hit a pinch-hit home run off reliever Jeremiah Estrada, giving the rookie long balls in back to back games.

Cortes pitched in time all evening, allowing one hit while going to a three-ball count just twice and getting ahead of eight of the first 12 batters he faced. It was good to earn his second win of the season and first for the Brown and Gold.

“It feels like once (Cortes) gets in a rhythm, it’s really good and he got into rhythm right from the very first batter,” Shildt said. “Just carried it through, and that was a fantastic effort for six. One hit baseball, it’s the only blemish, (he) didn’t walk anybody and it was tremendous.”

San Diego found their breakthrough in the fourth, as Machado led off with a walk and then Ryan O’Hearn notched the first hit of the game. Bogaerts showed bunt multiple times, but would draw the fourth walk of the night by Tyler Glasnow to load the bases.

Then with one out, Laureano — six days removed from taking the Dodgers starter deep at Chavez Ravine — went with an outside half sinker and hit it through the right side of the infield to bring in a pair of runs. Jake Cronenworth followed up by catching a slider that stayed up for a sacrifice fly and the 3-0 lead.

“I saw (Glasnow’s) pitches in the first inning, I had a little bit of an idea of what he was going to do in that situation in the next at bat,” Laureano said. “(I wasn’t) trying to do too much, not trying to be a hero and just put the ball in play.” 

It built off a gritty third where Padres batters forced Glasnow to throw 26 pitches, with 10 coming to Luis Arraez fouling off six two-strike pitches with Laureano and Tatis aboard having drawn walks. Then Cortes continued his locked-in, pacy pitching by needing only eight offerings to retire the Dodgers in order.

“A big swing in a lot of games are anything that’s free. We earned six walks today, some guys took some really long tough at bats… we had some longer at bats early that just takes it out of guys a little bit,” Shildt said. “We were able to do that, we were able to take our walks and that adds up, and I thought really stubborn and greedy to where we wanted to be against Glasnow and their pitching staff.”

LA’s lone hitter to reach against the San Diego starter was Miguel Rojas, who dumped a one-out single in front of Fernando Tatis Jr. but would not advance as Cortes got the next two batters to fly out. The only other real moment of concern came when Freddie Freeman hit a warning-track shot to center field in the second.

“Being able to come in and attack, and just be ready from the first pitch was really important,” Cortes said. “I know me and Ruben (Niebla) talked in between these two outings… hey, start firing in the first inning, start firing on the first pitch. Whenever we decide to pull you we’ll pull you, but just make sure you give us a chance in the fourth or fifth inning to make that decision and that’s exactly what I did.”

The six-inning effort matched his longest start of the season, and was Cortes’s longest since joining the Padres. He finished with three strikeouts before handing the ball off to Jason Adam to retire the Dodgers in order in the seventh with a K. Adrian Morejon got the final four outs of the game, two with strikeouts.

Glasnow was lifted after the fourth, having allowed three runs on two hits with four walks and three strikeouts; he has had three or more walks in four of his five road starts.

San Diego moved one game up on the Dodgers for the NL West lead, while Los Angeles is a game and a half back of the Chicago Cubs for the top NL Wild Card after the Cubs beat the Los Angeles Angels on Saturday.

The final regular season meeting between the teams will see Nick Pivetta (13-4, 2.81 ERA) take the hill for the Padres against Yoshinobu Yamamoto (10-8, 2.90 ERA), with first pitch scheduled for 1:10 p.m. at Petco Park.

This story was updated at 9:06 p.m.