SAN DIEGO _ As he had to get the Padres started on their first 81 games, Jhoulys Chacin labored under the sun Sunday afternoon. He issued nearly as many free passes as strikeouts. A start against the rival Dodgers ended much sooner than Chacin planned.
Only not all was lost this time. Far from it, actually.
The 29-year-old Venezuelan started the official second half with five stressed but scoreless frames in a 5-3 win at Petco Park, a reminder of the handful of things that have gone right in a season earmarked for painful but necessary lessons.
Chacin's starts at home _ where he is 5-2 with a 1.68 ERA _ stand out on that list, as do the contributions from youngsters that paved the way for just the second win in nine meetings with Los Angeles.
There was Manuel Margot's first home run since returning from a left calf strain that shelved him for a month. There was Hunter Renfroe's first four-hit game. There were the likes of Jose Pirela, Rule-5 catcher Luis Torrens and rookie Carlos Asuaje factoring into early rallies. And again, there was the bullpen hanging on as All-Star Brad Hand and closer Brandon Maurer navigating the final two innings with relative ease to move the Padres to 16-15 since May 27.
For a team that had sunk to baseball's worst record in May, that's lost more than 800 games to DL stints, that's expected to lose more often than not, it's a start.
"Is .500 the ultimate goal? No," Padres manager Andy Green said before Game 82. "But there's a lot of encouraging things in the way these guys have fought. They've fought through some really rough games to come back and win series. This team has shown over and over that they are together, that they are resilient.
"There's been a lot of positives. There's a lot of work left to do."
Chacin (7-7, 4.52) would do well to simply continue on his current trajectory. Sunday's start was the seventh straight with three or fewer earned runs allowed.
Of course, there was nowhere to go but up after coughing up nine runs in 3 1/3 innings at Dodger Stadium on opening day.
He limited Los Angeles to a run in 5 1/3 innings at Petco Park in his next meeting and gutted his way through five scoreless Sunday despite having runners on base in every inning.
"He worked hard for this one, about as hard as you can work for a win," Green said. "He was in danger in every inning but never broke. ... Those were five hard-fought innings and you could tell he wanted it."
Chacin struck out rookie phenom Cody Bellinger looking to strand a runner on second in the first. He recorded three straight outs after putting the first two runners on in the second. He got Yasmani Grandal to ground out weakly to third with the bases loaded in the third. After Utley flew out to left with a runner on in the fourth, Grandal again grounded out to end the fifth inning with two runners on base.
All that traffic added up to 107 pitches (63 strikes) when Chacin exited with a 5-0 lead.
"They are a really good hitting team and you have to make good pitches to get them out," said Chacin, who struck out six and scattered four hits, three walks and two hit batters. "When I get a runner on base, I'm trying to make good pitches, trying to limit the damage. I'm happy I was able to shut the door and not allow any runs."
It helped leading from the get-go.
Margot homered in his first at-bat in. An inning later, he and Pirela doubled in runs in a three-run rally and Pirela added a run-scoring single in the fifth, all charged to Dodgers right-hander Kenta Maeda (3.2 IP, 5 ER). The Dodgers managed their runs after Chacin's exit, with left-hander Ryan Buchter allowing two inherited runners from Phil Maton to score on Corey Seager's sixth-inning double and another to cross the plate on a Grandal solo shot that cut the Padres' lead to 5-3 in the seventh.
Hand retired the side in order in the eighth and Maurer stranded an infield single in the ninth as the Padres completed a 5-4 homestand despite dropping two laughers to the Dodgers to start the weekend.
"We have a really young group here, but I think you're always trying to focus on doing things the right way, working hard and taking care of that," said Margot, who has four multi-hits in his last five games. "So far as a season, as a team, the results haven't been there but I think you're seeing a future.
"I think you're seeing something that can grow."
