Padres 6, Dodgers 3
LOS ANGELES -- In a game that featured heightened intensity but no fisticuffs, the San Diego Padres defeated the Los Angeles Dodgers 6-3 Monday night in the first matchup between the teams since the Carlos Quentin-Zack Greinke brawl.
The last time the teams met, tempers flared when Quentin charged the mound after being hit by a Greinke pitch. In the ensuing skirmish, Greinke suffered a broken collarbone that will sideline him at least eight weeks, and the Dodgers entered Monday's game with ears perked and blood pressure raised.
Quentin wasn't in action, as he served the second game of an eight-game suspension for his role in the skirmish.
The Padres broke open a 3-3 tie with a two-run seventh inning, benefitting from Dodgers reliever Ronnie Belisario's wildness. Belisario (0-2) walked in Chris Denorfia with the bases loaded for the go-ahead run, then induced a no-out, bases-loaded double play by Yonder Alonso that scored pinch runner Jesus Guzman.
San Diego added an insurance run in the top of the ninth when Kyle Blanks hit a sacrifice fly to score Everth Cabrera.
Los Angeles squandered a prime scoring opportunity in the bottom of the eighth inning. Pinch hitter Skip Schumaker botched a squeeze bunt attempt with runners on second and third, and A.J. Ellis was caught at home trying to cut the San Diego lead to one.
The Padres struck first from an unlikely source.
After Alexi Amarista walked with one out in the second and Cameron Maybin singled two batters later, pitcher Eric Stults smacked a Chad Billingsley pitch to deep center field for his first major league home run.
Los Angeles chipped away with single runs in consecutive innings. Adrian Gonzalez drove in Carl Crawford in the third, Crawford singled home Luis Cruz in the fourth, and Ellis brought in Matt Kemp in the fifth.
Stults (2-1) and Billingsley each allowed three runs in six innings.
Huston Street pitched a scoreless ninth inning for his second save.
NOTES: Los Angeles won two of three games in San Diego last week. After dropping the opener 9-3, when San Diego produced a five-run, eighth-inning rally, the Dodgers won back-to-back one-run games. ... Los Angeles won the season series with San Diego 11-7 last year. ... Billingsley entered the game with more wins against the Padres (13) than against any other team. ... The Los Angeles pitching staff is off to a brilliant start, ranking second in the major leagues in team ERA and batting average against and leading the majors in strikeout-to-walk ratio and quality starts entering Monday's games. ... San Diego entered the game with 23 doubles, third in the majors. ... Gonzalez, a former Padres star, entered the game with a National League-leading 18 hits. He ranked second with a .409 batting average. ... All players wore the No. 42 in honor of Jackie Robinson Day, and Robinson's teammate Don Newcombe was in attendance.
