SAN DIEGO _ There was a theme to the music played before Sunday's game a Petco Park.
Relief pitchers played catch in the outfield and Fernando Tatis Jr. stood in the dugout watching the grounds crew spray water on the infield dirt and Jayce Tingler made his rounds, cup of coffee in hand.
Inside the Padres clubhouse and trainers' room, players lounged and got treatment and drank coffee and pulled on socks and pants and their Sunday camouflage uniforms.
Floating in the air throughout the otherwise empty ballpark were songs telling tales of sand and sun, days soaked in rum and bare feet.
It was a soundtrack for a team in need of a vacation.
They won't get one for a while _ not until November, they hope. But Monday will seem like one.
For just the second day since the season began a month ago, the Padres do not have a game.
It's almost a shame they have to take a break. Almost.
A 5-3 victory over the Astros on Sunday completed a perfect week for the Padres, who on Monday stopped a five-game losing streak and began what has become their first seven-game winning streak since 2013.
Manny Machado's two-run homer in the eighth inning broke a 3-3 tie, and Emilio Pagan earned his second save in three games by pitching a perfect ninth on a day when the bullpen pitched 7 1/3 scoreless innings.
Now they will gladly take the day down after a nearly solid month of following ever more-stringent protocols, of flights and late nights and early mornings and playing games that seem more intense than usual because a playoff race has been going on since the start.
The Padres (18-12) have the fourth-best record in the National League. They are four games ahead of the Giants and Rockies for second place in the NL West. The first- and second-place teams in each division plus two wild cards make the postseason this year.
Just three other teams have played 30 games. The majority have played between 25 and 28.
Last season, the Padres never had a 30-day stretch with fewer than three off days.
In getting to their break, the Padres fell behind 3-0 in the first inning, tied the game with three runs in the fourth inning and won it late.
The Astros struck first against Adrian Morejon, the 21-year-old left-hander who threw three hitless innings in a start at Texas on Tuesday, on an RBI single by Carlos Correa and Kyle Tucker's two-run homer.
Zack Greinke's 13-3 record against the record comprises an .813 winning percentage that is highest among any pitcher who has made 10 starts against the team. His 0.92 WHIP (walks and hits per inning pitched) is lowest among any pitcher who has thrown more than 71 2/3 innings against them.
Tatis' single leading off the fourth inning was the Padres' first hit against the right-hander. Eric Hosmer's RBI double down the right field line would be the second. Wil Myers followed with a walk before Jake Cronenworth drove home Hosmer and sent Myers to third base with a single.
Immediately after Cronenworth's single, Greinke signaled for the grounds crew and stalked to the dugout, where he sat down and drank some water. A spot where he his foot landed on his follow-through had been bothering Greinke much of the game, and he wanted it fixed. Five minutes later, it was.
The next batter, Jurickson Profar, tied the game with a groundout to second base that brought in Myers from third.
Hosmer's sixth-inning single was the only other hit off Greinke, who threw 106 pitches in his six innings.
It remained tied until the eighth.
After Tatis robbed George Springer of a single by sprinting back and leaping to grab a lazy line drive in not-so-shallow left field in the top of the inning, he led off the bottom half of the eighth with a bloop single to center field. Machado was up next, and after he went to a full count on a pitch he thought was a ball, he blasted his eighth home run of the season and third in the past six over the wall in right-center.
