HOUSTON — For the first time in their history, the Padres played extra innings for a fourth straight game.
It was worth it.
A day doused by disappointment for so long was prolonged by a blast and two blown saves and then won by another big blast.
Wil Myers’ three-run homer in the top of the 12th was the difference in an 11-8 victory over the Astros, as Miguel Díaz finally ended the Padres’ longest game of the season at five hours, eight minutes.
Díaz, the Padres’ seventh pitcher, got Carlos Correa on a fly ball to shallow center field, Aledmys Díaz on a groundout to third base and struck out Taylor Jones to end a scoreless inning.
Myers’ home run just cleared the wall and the glove of leaping right fielder Kyle Tucker. Fernando Tatis Jr.’s three-run homer with two outs in the ninth inning sailed an estimated 448 feet and hit the back wall of Minute Maid Park. That blast came one pitch after Jones failed to catch a foul pop-up near the stands by first base.
Manny Machado grounded a high fastball through the right side to score Ha-seong Kim from third base with two outs to give the Padres an 8-7 lead in the top of the 11th.
Austin Adams came in to pitch the bottom of the 11th with Myles Straw on second base. Straw moved to third on Garret Stubbs’ sacrifice bunt before Jose Altuve flied out to right. A full-count slider to Chas McCormick sailed high and bounced off catcher Victor Caratini’s glove, allowing Straw to score while McCormick jogged to first base. After walking Alex Bregman on five pitches, Adams struck out Tucker.
Eric Hosmer began the 10th on second base and, with Myers up as the leadoff batter, went to third on a wild pitch. Myers walked before Hosmer scored on Jurickson Profar’s double play grounder.
Tucker started the bottom of the 10th on second base, and Correa tied the game by trading places with him with a double to left field off Mark Melancon. The Padres intentionally walked Díaz before Jones grounded into a double play. That moved Correa to third, but Straw flied out to right field.
On Friday, the Padres scored seven runs in the 11th inning to beat the Astros 10-3.
Little by little Saturday, the Padres chipped away at the lead the Astros built off Yu Darvish.
But every run they scored was steeped in or followed by disappointment. When Tatis came to the plate representing the tying run with two outs in the ninth inning, the Padres had just three hits in 14 at-bats with runners in scoring position.
Then they finally got a big hit. A huge hit.
Tatis watched his rocketed shot, at 114.9 mph, sail all the way to the back wall of Minute Maid Park before he began his jog around the bases, his three-run homer having just tied the game 6-6.
Pierce Johnson survived Altuve’s leadoff single in the bottom of the ninth, and the Padres were on to a 10th inning for the second night in a row here after finishing their series in Milwaukee by splitting two extra-inning games.
Even before Tatis’ homer, the Padres had outhit the Astros. But they were unable to bunch those hits enough to get more than three runs in the first eight innings.
Tatis’ home run was his 15th, tying him for the National League lead and putting him one off the major league pace. But it was his first hit in four at-bats with runners in scoring position. He did drive in the Padres’ first run with a bases-loaded groundout on a 3-0 pitch.
That cut the Astros’ lead to 5-1.
The five runs came against Darvish. The Astros’ sixth run was scored in the sixth on two singles and a run-scoring sacrifice bunt by Stubbs.
Saturday wasn’t the bruising the Astros gave Darvish the last time he faced them, four Octobers ago when he was pitching for the Dodgers and the Astros were, according to a later MLB investigation, actively stealing signs via video and employing various ways of alerting batters which pitches they were about to see.
Both of Darvish’s starts in that Series lasted 1 2/3 innings, and the Astros scored a total of nine runs (eight earned) on nine hits. Five of those were doubles, and two were home runs.
Darvish was throwing his fastball the majority of the time back then. It is practically his third pitch now, as he throws his cutter more than anything and his slider about as often as his fastball. He has also increased his curveball and split-fingered fastball usage while hardly throwing his change-up anymore.
The Astros took a while to figure him out Saturday. They were hitless for three innings.
Then McCormick lined the first pitch of the fourth to left field, and with two outs Correa crushed a first-pitch cutter to the home bullpen beyond the wall in right-center field.
After Astros starter Jake Odorizzi ran his string of Padres batters retired to 14 in the top of the fifth, Houston added three more runs in the bottom of that inning.
The last of those scored on Jake Cronenworth’s first error in 26 games.
Darvish yielded just four hits but walked three and hit a batter.
It was a new season high of five runs allowed for Darvish. He had allowed more than one run just once since his first start with the Padres and had not allowed more than two.
He had gone seven innings in five of his past nine starts, and the Padres were 9-1 when he started games this season.
Caratini led off the sixth with a single to break up Odorizzi’s run, and a single by Tommy Pham and lineout to center field finished Odorizzi’s day.
Cronenworth greeted reliever Brooks Raley with a single to loaded the bases before Tatis chopped a 3-0 cutter up the middle for a groundout that brought in Caratini. Hosmer hit a hard grounder to the right side that Altuve fielded in shallow right field and threw to first to end the inning.
Machado led off the eighth inning with a double, Cronenworth followed with a walk and both scored — on singles by Hosmer and Myers. But for the second time in a three-inning span, the Padres failed to bring in multiple runners in scoring position to got there with less than two outs.
Machado’s two-out walk and a double by Cronenworth preceded Tatis’ homer.
