ATLANTA _ A night after coming close to doing so, the Padres on Friday fought all the way back from their own ineptness and that of the home plate umpire to beat the Atlanta Braves 9-3.
And their rally in the eighth inning might not have been the most entertaining part of the night.
Frustrated by a second straight game in which he felt the Padres were getting the bad end of bad umpiring, manager Andy Green lost his cool, threw his lid and after getting tossed offered a parting line that went viral.
On Thursday, home plate umpire Mark Ripperger drew the ire of Green with a phantom hit by pitch ruling. Friday, home plate umpire Joe West topped his counterpart in a big way.
West called a ball on a full-count pitch to Freddie Freeman that was well inside the strike zone. He called a Braves player safe at the plate on a play that was overturned on a replay review. He called Ozzie Albies out on a swinging strike and then changed his mind.
The last of those, in the fourth inning, prompted Green to give fans perhaps the highlight of a night that featured plenty of slop to that point.
As Green walked back to the dugout still chirping, West ejected him. Green reversed course, charged at West, threw his cap in the ump's direction and screamed at him for a couple minutes before being escorted off the field by bench coach Mark McGwire.
As he finally departed down the steps leading to the clubhouse, Green turned back and shouted, "Don't worry, I'm leaving Joe. You go call another call wrong."
Television cameras picked up the sound, and it made its way around the internet.
There was no denying West had a bad game.
Thing was, the Padres were such a shell of a baseball team for much of the night _ until scoring four run in the seventh inning on Hunter Renfroe's two-run single and Freddy Galvis' two-run homer _ that they could hardly have blamed the umpire had they lost this one.
They made errors, didn't hold onto balls they should have that weren't technically errors. They didn't take advantage of excellent scoring opportunities. Starting pitcher Clayton Richard struggled.
The night began with such glee.
Travis Jankowski slapped the game's first pitch the opposite way just inside the left-field line for a double. Two batters later, in his 268th at-bat of the season, Jose Pirela lined a home run over the wall in right-center field.
No player in the majors was homerless with as many at-bats as Pirela had this season. Dating to last Sept. 4, Pirela's 293 at-bats between homers comprised the second-longest active streak behind Tampa Bay's Mallex Smith (320 entering Friday).
Teammates were ebullient as Pirela sprinted around the bases and mobbed him when he returned to the dugout.
That was pretty much the end of the good.
Really, the Padres were so bad that they turned positives into negatives. It was that kind of night.
The Padres loaded the bases with consecutive singles by Galvis, Manuel Margot and Raffy Lopez to start the second inning. Richard struck out, and Jankowski grounded into a double play.
That was just a prelude to all the other ways the Padres would suffer deja vu from the previous night, a 4-2 loss in which they stranded runners and had sloppy play bite them.
In the bottom of the second inning, Jose Pirela's wide throw to second base allowed the Braves to load the bases with one out rather than having runners at first and third with two down. The next batter, Johan Camargo, hit a single to right field that tied the game at 2-2.
On the back end of that play, Renfroe threw a pinpoint laser to third base that should have gotten Ender Enciarte. But Christian Villanueva could not handle the throw off the hop.
Richard ended up getting out of the inning with a strikeout and fielder's choice grounder.
In the third, a fantastic sweeping tag by catcher Raffy Lopez after he took a short-hopped, off-line throw from Eric Hosmer saved a run _ only after West's initial call was overturned. It was a credit to Richard that he got out of that inning, which also featured West calling ball four on a 3-2 slider that wasn't close.
Freeman gave the Braves a 4-3 lead in the fifth inning with his 15th homer of the season _ after the Padres had again put a runner in scoring position with none out in the fourth inning and failed to score.
While Richard (6-6) wasn't his sharpest, he threw 96 pitches and got through six innings for the eighth straight start. He was in line for the win when the Padres went ahead in the seventh.
Their four runs came only after nearly coming away empty again after having the bases loaded with no outs.
Franmil Reyes, pinch-hitting for Richard, singled. Jankowski walked, and Hosmer hit an infield single.
Pirela then grounded into a double play.
Renfroe put the Padres ahead with a single that scored Jankowski and Hosmer.
Villanueva followed with a walk, and Galvis' fourth hit of the night was a home run just beyond the wall in left-center field.
Galvis would finish the night 5-for-5, a career high in hits, with four RBIs. His single in the ninth drove in the second run of that inning and the final one of the night.
