LOS ANGELES _ Once again when facing a sheer cliff, the Padres danced away from the edge of a season about to break bad.
All the impetuousness at the plate. All the incongruity in the pitching.
This team has been frustrated at times by its wild ride.
But it seems there is an impressive upside to being a group of little big leaguers.
"There's no quit in these guys," an obviously tired and relatively old Eric Hosmer said late Saturday night. "That's the good thing about having a young team. You just go out there and play hard every day. You don't really know better."
Too many years of being awful contributed to the Padres not being relevant during the All-Star break, with only closer Kirby Yates representing them on the National League roster and neither of their two slugging outfielders invited to the Home Run Derby.
But what happened here the past three days, capped by a 5-3 victory over the Dodgers on Sunday in the final game of the season's first half, means the Padres will be relevant after the All-Star break.
They arrived in Los Angeles late Wednesday night needing to win three of their four games in a place they hadn't won very much in order to be able to reset and start the second half with a .500 record. (The last time they were at .500 or better at the break was in 2010.)
They lost the opener of this series, their fifth straight defeat.
It didn't look good for a team that had won just 17 times in its past 60 games at Dodger Stadium going against a team that was 37-9 at home this season, by far the best mark in the major leagues.
The Brewers were the only team this season to have won successive games in L.A. The Padres play here nine or 10 times a year and had not won twice in a row since 2016.
Oh, and the last time the Padres took three of four in a series at Dodger Stadium was 2004.
So to the surprise of no one in navy blue, there were the crazy clueless kids late Sunday afternoon, skipping off the grass in Chavez Ravine.
They had been led in the series finale by the youngest among them.
Fernando Tatis Jr. led off Sunday's game with his 13th home run of the season and hit a three-run homer in the fifth inning.
In between those blasts, Manuel Margot homered for the second straight game. (Tatis also made another spectacular defensive play, diving to his left to grab Austin Barnes' grounder, then throwing from his knees to retire Barnes.)
Joey Lucchesi (7-4) got the victory for his 6 1/3 innings of work. He allowed two solo home runs _ Max Muncy in the second inning and Justin Turner in the sixth _ and was removed after allowing a run on two hits in the seventh that pulled the Dodgers to within 5-3.
It was the 11th straight game Lucchesi went at least five innings.
Trey Wingenter got the final two outs of the seventh inning, Craig Stammen worked the eighth, and Yates extended his major league lead by pitching a perfect ninth for his 30th save.
And so the Padres head into the break streaking _ the way they have spent much of the season's first three months.
When they host the Braves on Friday, they will be riding their seventh win streak of at least three games. They have six losing streaks at least that long.
