Jorge Alfaro drew a bases-loaded walk from Craig Kimbrel with two outs in the 10th inning and the San Diego Padres beat the NL West champion Los Angeles Dodgers 4-3 on Tuesday night to reduce their magic number for clinching a wild-card berth to four.
The Padres started the winning rally against Kimbrel when Kim Ha-seong sacrificed automatic runner José Azocar to third. Juan Soto was intentionally walked, Manny Machado struck out and Brandon Drury walked to load the bases. Alfaro worked the count full before walking to bring in Azocar.The Padres had gone ahead 3-2 in the eighth when third baseman Justin Turner's two-out, bases-loaded error on Drury's broken-bat grounder allowed Trent Grisham to score.
The Padres are closing in on their first playoff berth in a full season since 2006, when they won the NL West for the second straight season. They were aided by the Milwaukee Brewers' 6-2 loss to St. Louis. The Padres hold a 2 1/2-game lead over Philadelphia for the second wild card. The Brewers stayed 1 1/2 games behind the Phillies.