Field Level Media
May 19, 2018
San Diego left-hander Clayton Richard pitched into the eighth and Christian Villanueva drove in two runs with a double and a home run Saturday as the visiting Padres beat the Pittsburgh Pirates 6-2.
Cory Spangenberg also homered for San Diego.
Richard (3-5) held the Pirates scoreless through the first seven innings. Overall, he allowed two runs and seven hits in 7 1/3 innings, with two strikeouts and no walks.
The Padres have won five of seven, including two of the first three in the series, and will go for a series win Sunday. They have not won a series in Pittsburgh since they took two of three Aug. 8-10, 2014.
Pittsburgh, which had won three of four and eight of 10, will go for a split after going 10-3-1 in their first 14 series, including 5-1-1 at PNC Park.
Pittsburgh right-hander Nick Kingham (2-1), making his third career start, gave up three runs in the first, then settled down to pitch five scoreless innings. He gave up five hits, with five strikeouts and one walk.
The Padres scored three in the first when Eric Hosmer drew a one-out walk, followed by three straight doubles -- Franchy Cordero down the line in right, and Jose Pirela and Villanueva down the line in left.
Villanueva added a two-out solo homer, his 11th, in the eighth off reliever Tyler Glasnow to make it 4-0.
The Pirates broke up the shutout in the eighth when David Freese led off with a double to center and scored an out later on Jordy Mercer's base hit. Pinch hitter Elias Diaz singled, chasing Richard, and Sean Rodriguez greeted reliever Craig Stammen with an RBI double to make it 4-2.
San Diego added a couple more in the ninth off George Kontos. Manuel Margot reached on Mercer's error at shortstop, stole second and went to third on Diaz's errant throw from catcher. He scored on Raffy Lopez's sacrifice fly. Spangenberg followed with a pinch-hit solo homer, his third, to right to make it 6-2.
--Field Level Media