D-backs get to Yates for first win of season

It was certainly not a must-win game for the D-backs, but when there are only 60 games in a season, each one takes on more significance than usual. So when they took the Petco Park field against the Padres on Sunday afternoon in San Diego, they desperately wanted to avoid losing a third straight game to start the season.

Thanks to two-run rallies in the eighth and ninth innings, the D-backs notched their first win of the season by a 4-3 margin.

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“I'm not going to say we feel pressure today, or like today was a must win, but you can definitely feel the tension of like ... let’s start playing the way we were in Summer Camp,” D-backs closer Archie Bradley said. “Let's put together at-bats. And it was cool to see us, at the end, rally and pull one out there. It was definitely very important to get that first one and not start 0-3, because then you go into the day game tomorrow and you have the focus of ‘let’s not get swept.’ And it's kind of bad thoughts going into the fourth game of the year.”

Instead, the D-backs will go into Monday’s series finale looking for a split of their opening series.

Things didn’t look good for the D-backs early on. Their offense, which had struggled to score just three runs in the first two games of the season, remained cold through the first seven innings as the Padres took a 1-0 lead on Eric Hosmer’s third-inning homer.

The frustration definitely began to build, and it boiled over a bit in the fourth when designated hitter Kevin Cron was hit just above the left elbow by a Garrett Richards pitch.

Home-plate umpire Mark Ripperger ruled that Cron had not made sufficient effort to get out of the way, so the at-bat continued, but it did so without D-backs manager Torey Lovullo, who argued -- from a socially-distant six feet away -- with Ripperger and was ejected.

“Mark Ripperger has been doing this for a long time, and you know it was a quick judgment call and I didn't believe that we saw it the same way,” Lovullo said. “Obviously, I got a little bit frustrated. He explained to me that Kevin leaned into the ball and kind of exposed his elbow and threw his elbow out in front of the baseball. I just became very frustrated by his explanation and went too far with it, which, that's on me.”

Through the first two games and seven innings, the series followed a familiar script -- the Padres’ hitters worked deep counts, running up pitch counts, while the D-backs’ hitters were chasing too many pitches early in counts and were unable to put together sustained rallies.

That flipped with the two-run eighth, and if it took an excuse-me swing from Starling Marte that sent a grounder down the right-field line to score their first run, well, so be it.

Another two-run rally in the ninth -- against one of the best closers in the game in Kirby Yates -- proved to be the difference. During the inning, the D-backs were patient, drawing a pair of walks.

“Just sitting and waiting for our pitch, taking balls just off the edge,” Lovullo said. “I think we had a really good plan against him. He was almost unhittable last year.”

Then it was up to Bradley, who had gotten the final two outs of the eighth, to try to nail things down in the ninth.

A leadoff single and then a two-out RBI double brought Wil Myers to the plate with the tying run on second. It could have been an even worse situation had left fielder David Peralta not made an outstanding catch on Tommy Pham’s line drive for the second out.

Standing on the mound, Bradley knew that he stood between the D-backs possibly falling to 0-3 or getting their first win.

“First one, thrown right in the fire,” he said. “You know, put myself in some trouble. You got to lock in. I mean [Myers] is a power hitter and I was just trying to not let him get extended, trying to work them in and just not let them get that bat extended to put a barrel on it.”

Bradley got Myers to hit a jam-shot grounder back to him to end the game, and he and his teammates were able to breathe a sigh of relief.

“Today was a big win for us,” Peralta said. “We're happy for that. We're just going to keep going.”